I need ideas for soft foods...

Kudos to you, for your thoughtfulness! Smoothies are always a big hit, and can be supplimented with protien powder. Baked sweet potatoes are yummy and so nutritious. Eggs, prepared any style..maybe even quiche, with cheese and some finely cut veggies, steamed first to soften. Egg custard, rice pudding, oatmeal. If you have a juicer, use that too.

generally cold stuff is important at the beginning right after surgery, because heat may open a wound, so cold soups like vichyssoise or gazpacho, but a lot of others are fine served cold as well.
Fish mousse
pate', chicken liver mousse, vegetarian pates (mushroom based, generally)
hummus, baba ganoosh

Then when the problem is only soreness, there are some pureed things like mashed potatoes, or combinations like mashed potatoes and celeriac and/or onions, carrots, parsnips, etc.
Isn't there a turkish dish with pureed chicken and walnuts?
pappa al pomodoro
squash

The soft tissue in the mouth heals very fast. You've only got about two or three days of soft food before moving on to "softer foods."

Avoid rice, ground nuts, chips, anything that breaks up into small, hard pieces. They have a way of finding the wound and lodging there. Just say no. At least for a few days.

Amazing Grace nailed a lot of the first-choice, very soft foods.

Don't forget matzo balls, especially as Passover approaches. There's a current thread on matzo balls here, plus there are a couple of good delis in West L.A. Fromin's which is bad on lots of things, does a good matzo ball. Zucky's and Juniors are very good. Junior's "mish mosh" soup, is a good idea too. It's a big bowl of chicken soup with noodle, matzo ball and kreplach.

Cook all vegetables down to mush. If you cook them in a little bacon fat, you can call them "southern style." Squash and carrots work very well this way.

Fish is soft. Back to Passover, does she like gefilte fish? Whole Foods is selling jars of Kedem (pretty good) for $4.99. Or go down to Santa Monica Fish Company, get some fish and make your own. Gefilte fish is a project which pays dividends down the line for a culinary student -- think quenelle de poisson. If nothing else, you'll learn to make a fish fumet. Gelson's has the best lox in Los Angeles -- or you can make your own gravlaks. Takes about 36 hours to get a real gravlaks going, but two or three full days is better.

Of course with smoked fish, you're going to have to forego bagels and real crusty sourdough (unless you cut the crust off). Plenty of good sourdough around.

Lots of sausages are soft. Several of the supers sell good bangers -- which are an excellent choice because they cook so soft. The place across from the King's Head on 2d in Santa Monica sells excellent bangers. Weisswurst cook soft, and so do regular hot dogs and knockwurst. You can get the best hot dogs in LA from the supers and meat markets in "Little Armenia" aka "East Hollywood." Jon's (alas) does not have the best, but they're certainly adequate. Farmer John Louisiana sausage are ground very fine, and are a little more interesting than a plain hot dog.

Barbecued chopped chicken and pulled pork are soft. The barbecue formerly known as "Benny's" on Lincoln in MDR is okay on pork and chicken. There used to be a "Texas" style barbecue on Overland, between Pico and Venice that was good for both and had brisket tender enough to qualify. I'm not a fan of Mr. Cecil's but you may be.

Hamburgers are fairly benign and they're definitely comfort food. Speaking of which, the whole surgery thing is pretty traumatic. It's likely her mouth will be pretty well healed by the time she wants exciting food. I'd start with "comfort," and move along slowly.

The most salutary thing is not to feed her, but to let her know she's special.

Good luck,
BDL

Any root vegetable, and many others, can be turned into a mash. For instance, rutabaga. And English peas.

Both meat and vegetable pate's are soft, and tasty as well. Just avoid those made with pistachios the first few days. And things like potted shrimp, deviled ham, and so forth, which have a pate-like consistency, might appeal. All of these can be purchased. But you can easily make them yourself.

Chicken and fish can be shaped into quenelles, and cooked without outer wrappers. Or you can roll them in cling-film first, to make sausages, which then get poached.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned jells. Not necessarily the boxed instant stuff that Bill Cosby touts, but things that use geletin to create firm-but-soft dishes. Like this, for instance:

Malaysian Mango Jellies

4 cups water
1 cup sugar
2 rounded tbls unflavored gelatin, softened in warm water
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup evaporated milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 medium mango, pureed
1 large mango, very finely diced

Combine water and sugar in a pan and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Add soaked gelatin and continue heating until thoroughly dissolved. Remove from heat and all all ingredients except the diced mango. Mix until well blended, then add the diced mango.

Pour into individual molds and refrigerate until set. Garnish with fresh fruit and a little mango puree if you like---although you may want to hold-off on the fresh fruit until she's healed.

A lot of good suggestions already, so I am going to try a different tack.
Make her a double-decker PB&J with the crusts cut off, and cut into quarters, like a club sandwich.
Too cute.
Sometimes it's just the presentation that shows the extra love.

I must say though, that when I had my wisdom teeth removed, I really loved soft polenta with marinara.
I could eat plate after plate.

What aboout pastas??

You do a variety of sauces that are not the acidic tomato. You can make a marsala sauce, or brown butter sage sauce.

If you get some gourmet ravioli at the supermarket (whole food or trader joes will have them) you can find pumpkin stuffed ravioli which is great with the brown butter sage sauce. It's soft and tasty.

Another goodie, that is soft are sweet potatoes. They're good for you and you can do a variety of toppings to make them really tasty. I like mine with butter and Chinese Five Spice on them.

It doesn't have to be complicated to be good. Remember, after surgery, 'comfort' is what you want so think comfort foods: mashed potatoes, pasta, soups...

Good luck and what a guy!!

Don't forget the whole range of custards and puddings. I wouldn't serve her regular cooked rice, for instance. But a rice pudding might be OK. Ditto bread pudding, corn pudding, and so on.

Quiche, egg & onion pie, Spanish tortilla and all the variation on that theme should be doable for her as well.

And, of course, ice cream. Particularly in the first day or two. It's cold. It's soft. It's delicious. It's irresistible.

ky you beat me to it.....first thing I thought of was making jello with interesting juices.

tea bags (just ole lipton or tetley's) take down swelling.....or at least they were recommended a lifetime ago.

Applesauce

Avacado

hmmmm I'll check out Ferry Plaza newsletter to find out what's in season out west. We are still in the winter spinach, dreaming of asparagus & strawberry stage here in the mid west.

To the extent we have seasons, which we really don't in the south, the coast, or the growing areas of the inland valleys, California fields are churning out early summer vegetables and fruit.

Here in Los Angeles County, the local strawberry harvest began in late January. The same is true for San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernadino, Ventura, etc. Quality improved throughout February until mid-March -- by then they were as good as they get. Excellent asparagus, both white and green have been coming in for a few weeks. Frost marked artichoke are in sufficient stock that the prices are reasonable -- really delicious, too. All sorts of melon, spring and summer squash, and the orchards are churning -- although it's too early for good peaches. Otherwise it might as well be June.

This year's weather has been wonderful (shock!), except that we're in something of a drought. We had a few wet weaks in late winter but not enough.

In the agriculturally productive, inland valleys of the state we really only have two seasons. Spring and summer. In the coastal areas, including the coastal valleys which are also extremely productive, we have late spring and early summer, with maybe a couple of months of so of full on summer. We really don't have weather, we've got climate.

On the other hand, earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, we got.

BDL

Oral surgery

I had extensive jaw reconstruction done back in 2000, remember it well. I lived on (don't laugh) chicken and turkey tetrazini, with the chicken or turkey pieces chopped small and the pasta part of the dish cooked a little longer than I usually cook it. I was adventurous though and the Dr thought I had lost my mind when I was eating brisket and such within a weeks time....of course it was way over cooked until it literally fell apart when you looked at it. I couldn't live on the things they thought I would be able to eat.........poached eggs, yech, I eat maybe 2 eggs a year and definitely not poached. I could tolerate mashed potatoes and most other veggies overcooked, pastina in broth (my first meal hours after surgery) and pretty much anything with the exception of hard crusty things, I just had to basically overcook what I wanted. I was lucky tho, they had figured I would be eating baby food for a good 6 weeks but my recovery time was very short, in less than 3 weeks time I was pretty much back to eating everything prior to the surgery. I am also lucky in that I love soup and made many different kinds to tide me over in case I didn't want to cook, I could just zap em in the micro. I think the worst day was when they removed all the stitches holding me together, it was worse than the surgery itself and the healing time. They will most likely recommend she keep her mouth well rinsed to guard against infection, tell her to heed that warning. I wish her lots of luck, the mouth does indeed heal itself very quickly.

Eggs - poached, scrambled, omelette. Can fill omelettes with nice cheesy sauce, maybe include some cooked chopped english spinach. Or saute some mushrooms in butter then puree.
Melt some cheese on poached eggs or top with hollandaise - yum! Add some grated cheese and cream into scramble right at the end....but skimp on the pepper - could sting.

Mashed boiled egg with mayo on soft crustless white bread.
Liverwurst pate on same.
Blinis with sour cream and smoked salmon mousse.


Custards - sweet or savoury, you can add all sorts of flavourings. Top with a fruit sauce/coulis if sweet maybe.
Souffles (be brave :) ) again, sweet or savoury.
Creme caramel

Yoghurts - add all sorts of mashed fruits into greek style yoghurt and mix
Chocolate mousse with whipped cream- that one will win you a smile

Cheese fondue - dip some crust off baguette chunks in - so nice
Chocolate "fondue" - dip some marshmallows in melted chocolate (flavour with rum/cointreau if medication allows)
Fruit Compote cooked until very soft - start with dried apples, prunes, dried apricots, simmer in a sugar syrup until very very soft, maybe even soften it further with a potato masher. Serve with plain yoghurt or vanilla custard if wished.

ICECREAM!!! mmm with nice bottled sweet syrup on top.

Fruit Smoothies - my favorite is:

BANANA SMOOTHIE
Serves 1
1 banana - chopped, dipped in lemon, freeze
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup yoghurt
1/2 cup vanilla icecream
few drops vanilla essence
sugar to taste (optional)
grated chocolate to serve

Chuck it all in a blender till smooth and serve topped with grated chocolate and a sprinkle of ground cinnamon powder.


She's a lucky girl you know - wish my man would do as much for me
arrr grrr :lol:

Some things I forgot....

porridge with honey/golden syrup/ butter and sugar/ jam
This may be for a bit further down the track.

Also, after a while, nice soft pancakes with sugar or honey or jam, or go savoury pancakes with some nice finely chopped cooked chicken breast fricasee style in white/cheese sauce, or fish in the same manner or just a simple cheese sauce.

I understand

her being nervous about the surgery! By the time mine was actually done I was about ready for a breakdown.............all caused by my fear. The trepidation was worse than the actual surgery when all was said and done............it was probably one of the easier procedures I have ever had to have done, much easier and less painful than my root canals were when they were done. If she needs to chat with someone who has been thru it just send me a private message thru this site.