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Looking for help with meal planning for a senior

14 years ago

I was recently asked to cook meals daily for a senior, age isn't really an issue,money and time are.

He would like a different meal each day and a simple dessert.

I need help with a few simple desserts excluding jello, puddings and pies.

I plan to make chicken stew, chilli, spaghetti, meatloaf, pork chops and maybe pulled pork so far.

Can anyone help with other suggestions for variety.

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Comments (20)

katefisher
14 years ago
Hi Giia.

I can tell you one super easy dessert to make that also takes a matter of minutes. Apple Enchilada Dessert. I used to make this all the time when I first started making desserts which frankly wasn't all that long ago:) Hope this helps.

Kate

Here is a link that might be useful: Apple Enchilada Dessert
grainlady_ks
14 years ago
1. Are there any health issues that need to be addressed?

2. I'd ask what are his favorite meals and then would incorporate them according to the new MyPlate - http://www.choosemyplate.gov/. If that proves to be too many calories, then I'd switch to the old Basic-4, which is what we've used for our meal planning for decades.

3. Dessert at our house is fruit (in all it's forms) but especially fresh, and I'd suggest it for nearly everyone. It's rare that people actually consume even close to the number of servings needed per day.

4. I follow a plan that may help you out and give you some direction. I can leave a day out or switch days without altering the whole plan. I do a lot of freeze-ahead foods so I cook once and that serves for many meals.

Monday - Traditional meal. For us that means a large cut of meat that gets used throughout the week for sandwiches, base for soup, and possibly some for the freezer to use another day. Baked chicken, roast beef, meatloaf, etc.... and all the trimmings.

Tuesday - Leftovers, but usually in a different form from the day before. Or you can use leftovers on Wednesday and they won't appear so "leftover" as they do the next day.

Wednesday - Stir-fry. A casserole would also be an option.

Thursday - International (for want of a better name) - Something with pasta, a tortilla, etc. Even something as simple as a baked potato topped with chili (which I keep in single servings in the freezer). Or the chili can be used in a taco salad (similar to Wendy's).

Friday - Vegetarian (as a way to save on meat - we like to have a big traditional breakfast as a supper occasionally, fritatta, omelette, quiche, bean burgers)

Saturday - Soup and Sandwich

Sunday - Pizza or Dinner Salad

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Government Nutritional Infroamtion for the Elderly
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I guess this one is right up my alley. I'm mom of 4 sons though only one is still on the "payroll" though he's now off at college. Anyway there were a lot of years cooking for 6 and 5 of them were VERY hungry! I still use a plan though it's much looser and of course easier! Living 10 miles from a store and having a crowd to feed, I found doing a weekly menu saved me from living at the grocery store! I have a day that I go to the store and that day, I'll take stock of any items from the week before that I didn't use or any meals from the previous week that I never got around to cooking. Then I sit down with one or two cookbooks and start in. I jot down about 4 breakfasts and a few lunches if I think that people will be around (summer etc) but don't put a huge amount of thought into these two. I can always whip up a good breakfast with whats on hand for the most part. With kids around, plan on some nutritious snacks. For dinner, I plan out however many meals we'll need for the week. I usually figure that I'll have one meal where we either do leftovers or I defrost something from the freezer. We also usually eat out about once a week. So that leaves me with selecting 5 true menus. I do it all from veggies, salads, starch, bread and main dish. Be sure to make a note of the page in the cookbook for any new recipes. Look at your calendar for the week and be sure you have enough no brainers for the busy days. Cook extra chicken/meat and use it for a second meal turned into sandwiches, soup, or a casserole. Shopping for a week is easy and feasible. Do your meals that require the freshest produce at the beginning of your week and save the meatless/soup/pizza/sandwich meals for later in the week. Precook or freeze any meats that you'll be having at the end of the seven days. I'd usually need to pick up more milk midweek as my guys guzzled more than a gallon a day. I keep the menu paper on my island, and I feel free to substitute and change the meal or parts of the meal as needed swapping days etc. Remember nothing is written in stone!!! I think part of your "negative" slant on the menu planning may be that you don't want to be pinned down. Roll with the flow, change meals around.... it's only a guideline not military orders that you must follow to a T!!! Grace
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We grow what we like to eat, first and foremost, so that we are motivated to eat it later on regardless of how it is preserved. My first preference always is to eat fresh, in season, but the reality is that if you only eat fresh, in-season food, then you may find yourself eating so much food during its relatively brief fresh season (like asparagus, for example) that you get sick of it, but then later on you find yourself craving it out of season. I love aspragus but even I don't want to eat it every day during the couple of months it is producing,so we eat it fresh several days a week and freeze the rest. I try to freeze in the manner that is most productive for cooking later on---for example, cutting the produce into bite sized pieces before freezing it and freezing it in batches that are the right size for a meal. That makes cooking it quick and easy in the off-season. 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This year I fermented four batches, three of cabbage sauerkraut, and the fourth a hot sauerkraut that included hot peppers and carrots. All are through fermenting and canned now and that's a good thing because it is hard to keep our west-facing kitchen cool enough for proper fermentation in July and August. We do use our preserved food, but that is a very deliberate choice. I wouldn't spend all the time growing and preserving it if we weren't going to use it. I value the time and money invested in the garden too much to waste the harvest. You do have to make a very deliberate decision to plan meals around the food you grow and to take the time to cook them. It is a lot more work to prepare home-cooked meals from scratch versus using convenience foods (like Hamburger Helper or whatever) and fast food, but I try to make the bulk of our meals healthy ones from our garden. First of all, they taste better. Secondly, we know how this food was raised. Third, huge amounts of fossil fuels weren't used to transport the food from our garden to our house and that matters to me. I don't know how long we as a world can keep transporting food an average of 1500 miles from the place where it is grown to the grocery stores where it is sold. To me, growing and eating our own produce is part of our effort to live a more sustainable lifestyle that is not based on burning excessive fossil fuels. There are gazillions of ways to use fresh food. You can, for example, make sorbet out of almost anything you raise in terms of fruit, or you can make chips---I like kale chips and okra chips. Frozen food can be used in many ways. It is all about how you choose to use your time. I have tons of vegetable cookbooks with creative ways for using produce, so that we don't get stuck in a rut and eat the same old produce cooked the same old way every time. Some of my favorite veggie cookbooks are very old ones from Southern Living magazine, published decades ago when cooking meals from scratch was still considered an important art, not a waste of time. My time goes into the garden, harvesting the produce, cooking with it, and preserving it. That is the choice I make. I get somewhat amused at gardeners (and I bet we all know people like this) who grow all kinds of food, and take photos of their harvest and post those photos almost daily, but who rarely eat the food they grow. I feel like the 'social media generation' (who often are quite a bit younger than I am) love gardening for a different reason than I do---some of them seem to love it for the joy of growing the food and of photographing it and putting it on their FB pages, but they may not yet have mastered actually using very much of it. I have high hopes that their love of growing it eventually will lead to them actually using it for more than photos. Some young adults who grew up on convenience food and fast food have to make a very concerted effort to learn how to prepare and use the produce they raise because, perhaps, they didn't grow up in a home where meals regularly were prepared from scratch. I feel very lucky because my dad always grew produce and cooked from scratch (and he canned as well), while my mom abhorred the work involved in doing that, so when she cooked, it was often using convenience foods. This led to an amusing conversation with my brother in the early 2000s when he remarked that our mom didn't make very special meals on weekends, but that the weekend meals were great. I looked at him, wondering what planet he was from, and informed him that was because our dad did the bulk of the weekend cooking. I couldn't believe my brother grew up in the same household and never made the connection between the weekday vs. weekend meals and who was doing the cooking. It make me laugh out loud and ask him if he wasn't paying attention to who was in the kitchen in our childhood! He seemed completely baffled as our other siblings and I assure him that it was indeed Dad who was largely producing those great weekend meals. As an adult, I made a deliberate choice to pursue gardening, cooking and canning like my dad did and to largely avoid convenience food cooking. Have grown up eating both kinds of meals, I knew what I preferred and that was what I wanted for our family too. When I am in the garden, as much as I enjoy being out there, I never lose sight of the fact that my garden is a working garden. I'm not out there to play around, take photos, visit with friends, conduct garden tours, or to sit in a nice chair, sipping a glass of iced tea, and chilling and relaxing. That is not my reality. Particularly, I am out in the garden to work hard quickly (to both beat the heat and avoid the snakes), bring in the harvest and spend the rest of the day using it and preserving it. It is a job, truly, and not a hobby or a past-time, but it is a job I love and a job I enjoy doing overall, though there are occasional days that I hate it because I find myself working from sunrise until well after dark and that gets tiring. So, yes, we use what we grow, but it is because we choose to do that, and because we have developed the self-discipline to use what we grow and to not waste it. If we aren't using it, I yank it out and replace it with something we will use. Right now, with all our tomato preservation needs met/exceeded for this year, I am yanking out tomato plants right and left and replacing them with new crops for fall. It is a somewhat thankless task to be doing this on a hot July day, but I do it because I want to have a great harvest in late summer, autumn and winter. It also leaves some of my tomato-growing friends (who don't preserve their harvest) appalled that I remove plants still capable of producing, but I always keep enough tomato plants for fresh eating, and anything beyond that is a waste of space because I'm through preserving tomatoes for this year. Because we live in a rural area where families are very tied to the land and many gardens are multi-generational, where the grandparents, parents and grandkids (and sometimes great-grandparents and great-grandkids) all eat from the garden and help preserve the food from it, I had lots of encouragement and support from some of those multigeneration garden families in our neighborhood when I first started growing/preserving our food here. Mostly, though, they just served as an inspiration for me---I wanted to grow enough food to put up huge harvests like they did. As time went on and our garden produced all we could use and preserve, I noticed that these same multigenerational family gardens all hit the same point that mine did---the production level reached a point where nobody wanted to can another tomato. It became amusing as one friend or another would call and ask if we wanted or needed any more tomatoes (or okra or whatever) because they were through with their canning for the year and their plants still were producing. Many of them, like me, were growing 100-200 tomato plants in spring to meet their fresh eating and preservation needs. It made me realize we all were just alike---growing more than we can eat even though we preserve a great deal of it. To live this sort of edible gardening lifestyle is a deliberate choice. If you like gardening, but don't like using or preserving the produce, then why not just switch over to more ornamental gardening and less edible gardening? Our garden is multipurpose, providing not only fresh and preserved fruits, veggies and herbs, but also flowers for cut flower bouquets and pumpkins, gourds, amaranth and other ornamental decorative items for fall porch displays or table displays. If I don't fill up a lot of our growing space with flowers and only use it all for edibles, I'd never sleep because I'd be too busy preserving food. There's always room to grow some ornamental/decorative items or to grow compost crops to feed the compost pile or to grow cover crops to hold the soil When you are preserving food, why not use it later on? It is so wasteful to grow it and preserve it but then not to use it. I am happy every single time that we walk through a grocery store and aren't buying food that I have a home---whether that food is fresh and sitting on the kitchen counter or in the fridge, or if it is frozen, dehydrated, fermented, canned, etc. I love breezing through the produce section and only buying, let's say, lettuce, bananas, apples and grapes in summer or cranberries in fall or whatever. I love skipping the frozen food section (except to buy waffles and ice cream) because our own home-grown food fills the freezer. There's a part of me that gets very tired of the summer workload, but not tired enough to stop doing it. Every time there is news of yet another food-induced illness involving salonella, e. coli, etc. on produce, I am grateful we raise our own and don't have to risk bringing home some disease on grocery-store produce. I don't even like buying lettuce in summer, but Tim must have his salad, so we buy it and then we just have to hope we aren't buying contaminated produce. I'm happier fall through spring when we have our own lettuce and salad greens. Many people go to the grocery store and buy food and plan their meals around that purchased food and there's nothing wrong with that, but we are exactly the opposite when we go to the store. We already have planned our meals based around the food we have, whether fresh or preserved, and we just buy whatever we might need to make those meals complete. That's our preference, always. When we eat something like a purchased pizza, I still always joke with my family that "I grew this on the pizza tree out back" and we laugh. I do can pizza sauce and we do make homemade pizzas too, but there is room in everyone's life for a little fast food or convenience food as well. Dawn
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lindac
14 years ago
It would help to know other things. Will you be only cooking for him? do you plan on filling his freezer with meals that can be defrosted and heated. Who will be doing the cooking? you? is that why there are time constraints?
How about slpit chicken briefly sauteed with onions and mushrooms with brown rice and a veggie? Salmon pattied from canned salmon, Vegetable beef soup....takes a while to make but will many several meals.
For desserts any kind of apple cake or rhubarb cake or pumpkin bread in a cake pan lightly frosted. Mini fruit tarts, puddings from scratch with eggs and real vanilla flavoring.
Are their any health issues?
jude31
14 years ago
So, Kate, do you make the Apple Enchiladas as posted or do you change it in any way? I love apple desserts although I'm really not that fond of desserts as a whole.

jude
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
First, welcome to the Forum.

How old is he?

Is he French? Italian? Chinese?

dcarch
Giia
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks for all the replys, time meaning my time prep time
He is very open to most foods, Italian raised in Argentina.
Of course he loves pasta and sweets :)Not sure of age but senior with disability he has parkinson's.He didn't tell me about food issues just no allergies, not sure yet if he is low sodium and or sugar but I will do this mostly.
Thanks Kate that recipe is perfect and I plan on going with cream cheese too.
I am doing all the cooking, I have a husband to cook for sometimes :) he works away a lot but usually I cook for 2 and always have leftovers.
The freezer is what I plan on giving him on weekends.

I love the idea of vegetarian day, I will ask him.
My biggest change for me to do this is consistency, I am so used to spontaneous choices. therefore I need good recipes which I have lots of but don't use anymore.

thanks for the help...
annie1992
14 years ago
Well, if he has blood sugar issues and loves pasta, you might look into the Dreamfields low carb pasta, I can't tell the difference.

For desserts I'd try to make them fruit based, like apple or blueberry crisp, baked apples or applesauce, pear or peach cobbler. Lots of fruit, little sugar, fewer carbs. I've always liked the pumpkin pie filling baked without the crust, a kind of pumpkin custard, baked in custard cups.

My favorite dessert is a pear and maple cobbler, but blueberry crisp is right up there too. If you want a recipe for either, I'd be happy to post them.

Oh, and I make a dish with white beans, gnocchi and swiss chard, lots of fiber and protein with those gnocchi/pasta carbs!

Annie
Bumblebeez SC Zone 7
14 years ago
I keep ice cream cups and homemade cookies in the freezer for a dessert for my Dad. I get the Blue Bell cups and they are so convenient.
moosemac
14 years ago
When my parents and elderly aunts and uncles were alive, on Sundays I would cook meals for the week for them (2 couples and 2 singles, yes plus my own family of 5), the favorites were:

Baked Stuffed Potatoes, stuffed with chicken, bacon, broccoli and cheese.
Tacos with all the fixings. (Mild of course. Package the meat separately from the fixings. They thought this was fun.)
Shepherd's Pie
Fish Chowder (New England style) or clam or seafood
Beef, pork or chicken stew (Pork is my favorite with root vegetables.)
Lasagna or Ziti with meatballs
Chef's Salad
Tuna Salad Stuffed tomatoes with deviled eggs on a bed of lettuce
Chicken Rice soup
Beef Vegetable Soup with barley or orzo
Stir Fry vegetable and meat anything (slightly under cook the veggies) with a side of rice
Baked Chicken and rice (I used orange juice for part of the cooking liquid)
Braised Lamb Shanks
Homemade Boston Baked Kidney Beans with a Ham Steak or hot dogs
Creamed Salmon and Peas on toast or as a casserole
Pot Roast
Corned Beef and Cabbage
Quiches, spinach with onion, and ham or bacon and Swiss or cheddar cheese
And always homemade bread or rolls

They weren't a big dessert group but they did enjoy:
Crisps of any kind, i.e. apple, blueberry, peach, pear
Cream pies, banana or chocolate
Fruit pies, apple and strawberry rhubarb were the favorites (except for one uncle LOVED pecan pie)
Homemade cookies: oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, molasses, sugar
Cupcakes, especially angel food which they would eat with fresh fruit

Some had microwaves and heated their meals that way, others used the oven and one heated his meals on a rack over boiling water in a covered pot. I would package the meals according how the method being used to heat them i.e. glass or plastic for the microwave, and baking glass or foil and aluminum pan for the oven and double wrapped foil with an aluminum pan for the pot.

I would drop off the meals Sunday night and pick up the pans, containers, etc. from the previous week.
Giia
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks moosemac that was very good reply
morz8 - Washington Coast
14 years ago
Giia, you'll know more when you've had some experience cooking for him, but a heads up that sometimes chewing, swallowing can become issues with Parkinsons. (or with anyone elderly depending on the condition of their teeth) Of the very first things you mention, pork chops popped out at me. If I cook pork chops for my mother, I simmer them in gravy or sauce till falling-apart tender, serve with rice or she would eat everything else on the plate, push the chop around and leave it. Cuts of meat that require much chewing, like steaks, chops, roasts may not work out as well as softer foods, ie pasta dishes, ground meats, stews, seafoods etc.
User
14 years ago
Am also cooking for aging parents. At the moment nothing comes to mind in my routine that hasn't been mentioned (I'll keep thinking...)but had to chime in and give a virtual pat-on-the-back to moosemac. God love you for doing all of that for all of them! It's been less than a full year for me with just 2 extra to please plus all the running back & forth that entails and I often feel overwhelmed. Can't imagine how you managed to do your own family & the others, too.
Bumblebeez SC Zone 7
14 years ago
I recently made a very soft and tender chuck pot roast for my mil and it was still too chewy :-(
And in my experiences, no nuts or seeds. They get stuck in the teeth.
moosemac
14 years ago
Giia everyone has made great suggestions re: chewing meat, nuts and seeds, dietary issues, fresh vs freezing. You will have varying factors to which you will have to adapt the meals. Also herbs and spices can be issue, either the elders can't tolerate them or their taste buds are such that they want more seasoning. You'll figure it out as you go.

Amck,
God bless you for helping your parents. Helping my elderly family was very rewarding and yes frazzling at times. (The whole "tour of duty" lasted a span of 15 years culminating with my Dad moving in with us for his last 7 years. Yup 22 years total. Oh and I worked full time. Whew!) My aunts and uncles either never married or did not have children and I'm an only child so I became the caregiver for 6 elderly folks all at the same time. They were all very appreciative which made it so much easier. The Drs. appt's, weekly medicine set up, cooking, interviewing and overseeing housekeepers made it hectic. Cooking for them was my favorite part but I gave up my whole day every Sunday to do it. The bonus was I didn't have to cook for my family all week since the meals were already made. My kids were little so we made a game out of it and they learned to cook. At the end of the day we would "visit" all the relatives while we delivered the meals. I wouldn't change a thing! I'm very fortunate that my in-laws were younger at the time and even now are spry at 80 and 83 and self sufficient. When the time comes, we'll do it again for them.
deeebert
14 years ago
I am in awe of the people who have given of their time and skill to make the elder years better for their relatives. I guess you would call me a lurker on this site, but when I have something I think is good to contribute I will be here, or there.
annie1992
14 years ago
Welcome out of lurkdom, Deeebert.

This is a very timely thread because I'm just starting to cook for my Stepmother, who really loves junk food. I'd already thought of her heart problems and her kidney issues and things that could be kept in the freezer and microwaved, but I never thought about her teeth.

I've added bread and muffins and biscuits to her frozen "stash", along with some quick breads made in small loaves. One of the things she really does like is scalloped potatoes, so I'm going to work on freezing those. Hey, Stouffer's does it, so I can do it!

Annie
Charcuterie
14 years ago
This is a stupid easy mug cake. To make ahead mix the dry ingredients together, separate from the wet, and then combine them at the last minute. It takes about 1 minute in most microwaves. You can double the recipe easily.

1 minute Peanut Butter Cake

2 TBSP butter
1 TBSP brown sugar
2 TBSP chunky peanut butter, smooth is fine as well
1 egg, beaten well
1/2 ts baking powder
1 heaping TBSP AP flour

Mix the sugar and butter amd peanut butter with a fork in a mug. Add the egg and beat well. Add the other ingredients, mix and microwave for 30 seconds. Check the mixture and microwave for an additional 30 seconds. Pour frosting over and enjoy. If you don't want frosting add some chocolate chips.

Frosting:

1 ts milk
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
4- 5 tsp powdered sugar

Mix well, add more sugar or milk to get a thick yet pourable consistency.
Charcuterie
14 years ago
Here are some pics of the cake. You can make a lot of different single serving cakes this way including brownies. Just make sure to spray the mug or bowl well with cooking spray.

Mix the batter, add chocolate chips if you wish, pour into a microwave safe bowl that has been coated well with cooking spray.

Cook for 30 seconds on HIGH

stir, part of the cake will be already be cooked, just stir it in...

Turn over onto a plate and drizzle frosting on or eat it out of the bowl. This is a tasty, easy to make, and you can freeze the batter in cups.
Giia
Original Author
14 years ago
You guys rock, thanks for all the suggestions, I can't even imagine doing this for more people.
Thanks
katefisher
14 years ago
Jude, I'm sorry I have been out of town and just saw your post. I made it exactly as described. Nice and simple. Hope you like it.

Kate

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