saag paneer & dal

This whole soft-food thing has been a great brain exercise for us. I’m feeling like I’ve eaten enough white carbs to do me for a while, so thinking of things that are soft and flavorful but NOT bread/pasta/rice is a real challenge. I managed a small bowl of chili at a restaurant last weekend and realized that beans are my friends - soft, nutritious and full of protein. We decided to make red lentil dal for dinner, one of the softest and most comforting foods out there. To round it out, we made one of our favorite Indian dishes, saag paneer (spinach with panir cheese). Panir is the tofu of India: bland on its own, but a great foil for and absorber of strong flavors.

I love saag paneer not just because it’s softly spicy and full of cheese - it’s also really easy to make, assuming you can buy panir at your local shop like we can. If you have to make it from scratch…well, in that case, you might want to make something else (unless you have better luck making cheese than I do). Same with the greens - you could certainly buy a bunch of fresh spinach, but this is a dish where I think it’s better by far to just pull a bag of chopped spinach out of the freezer.

Padang fish curry

In further pursuit of soft foods I can eat after my oral surgery last week, I’ve been going through cookbooks and looking for recipes that use white fish - I figure it’s one of the few animal proteins that doesn’t require much chewing. I’ve also been getting bored, so I thought a curry might be nice, as long as it didn’t have too many chunks in it. What I ended up with was the Padang fish curry, a sweet and slightly spicy coconut milk dish, from Cradle of Flavor. Thank goodness, it was actually like eating real food again!

Padang fish curry for two

adapted from Cradle of Flavor by James Oseland

flavoring paste:

• 2 oz shallots, coarsely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 piece fresh ginger, thinly sliced
• 2 unsalted macadamia nuts

for the curry:

• 2 Tbsp canola oil
• 1 stalk lemongrass (ideally), tied into a knot
• 2 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 daun salam leaf (if you have it)
• 10 oz coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• kosher salt
• two serrano chiles, tops cut off
• 2/3 lb white fish

still on the “soft food” diet

Ordinarily I’d think this was a nice lunch: homemade macaroni and cheese with cauliflower, and a bowl of Pacific brand roasted red pepper and tomato soup. I am so tired of it. I’m starting to be able to eat a bit easier, but nothing chewy or crispy any time soon - and I’m amazed at how bored I’m getting. I’m tired of ice cream (I know, shocking).

I have ideas for something more interesting for dinner tonight, but in the meantime - anyone out there have any good ideas for soft foods? I can chew on one side, but I’m supposed to avoid acidic or caustic foods, or anything too hot, cold or spicy. What are your favorite foods for après-dental work?

soft foods & liquids

Things may be a little quiet around here for a couple days. I got a tooth pulled yesterday, and in between naps and trying to remember which pills I should be taking, I’m now casting around for ideas of things to eat with as little texture as possible, with the added fun of nothing hot, acidic or alcoholic.

As you might imagine, I’ve had a lot of yogurt. And cream of tomato soup. We had macaroni and cheese with steamed cauliflower last night, that went down pretty easy. So I’m not starving, but it all seems a little dull. And not very photogenic, either.

On the other hand, it was a perfect excuse for J to make me some ice cream! We dug out our copy of The Perfect Scoop, which hasn’t been seeing much use the last couple months, and I decided that plain old chocolate custard ice cream would do the trick. So J got hold of some good bittersweet chocolate and did it up, and oh my god it’s good. Like a fudgsicle, but a million times better. I can’t believe there’s a pint of it in my fridge right now and I’m not currently eating any. After the custard had chilled it was like a wonderful chocolate pudding, we almost didn’t want to put it in the ice cream maker - but it was even better afterwards.

You don’t need to wait until your next date with oral surgery to try this ice cream - go right out and make it now!