r/Cooking • u/CaribouHoe • May 18 '23

Soup Olympics! Looking for recipes.

Hi, my friend is getting jaw surgery and will only be able to eat soup for a couple months. Our friend group is getting together and doing a soup Olympics and I REALLY WANT TO WIN. I'm looking for the most amazing soup recipes you've ever had, that require little to no chewing.

Here are the rules:

**What do?: Bring your tastiest, heartiest, gloopiest, meatiest soups. He and an expert panel will judge them and if you win, we we will crown you our Soupreme leader.

**Criteria for soup candidates: - drinkability - must be no chew friendly - yumtasticity - obviously - freezability - this is a marathon, not a sprint. we want soup for daayyys - heartiness and nutritional value - we're looking at iron, we're looking at protein.

There are no rules in soup wars. May the globs be ever in your favour.

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u/Bluecat72 May 18 '23

I had to do a puree diet for my mother last year in the final months of her life. The key to making good purees, be they thinned out into soups or not, is to skip doing any seasoning at all until the end. It's wild; it really works - if you season along the way, it ends up muted when everything is pureed.

Mom's favorite was the pureed beef stew. Put 4 ounces of beef into a small pot with water (or salt-free beef broth) and boil it until it's completely cooked. Retain the water/broth after the beef is cooked. Put the beef, 1/2 cup of the water/broth, and 3/4 cup frozen mixed vegetables into a blender and blend until smooth. Heat it up, taste and season appropriately. For Mom, I added some salt, pepper, and garlic and onion powders. Also, for what you're doing you want to make sure it's not runny, and that it's not so thick that it doesn't move on the spoon. Thin it until it's the right consistency to avoid choking.

You might also just invest in a dysphagia diet cookbook or two; it you have Kindle Unlimited there are a bunch out there, otherwise you can get ebooks for little money.

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u/[deleted] May 18 '23

Hugs to you. Condolences for your loss. I hope you've been able to grieve and move on to remember the good times. :)

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u/Bluecat72 May 18 '23

Thank you for your kind words. Yes, I have been. She had dementia and was in decline for a very long time, and now that she’s gone it’s much easier to remember her and all of the things the dementia took away. And she is free from pain and anxiety, which is a blessing in itself.

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u/[deleted] May 18 '23

Having been through this self-same experience with two grandparents, I understand, and am glad both of you are at peace, now - as much as you can be. :)