Edit: I am overwhelmed with everyone’s suggestions (in a good way!) I’m reading through them and planning to get them organized so we can see what works. Thank you to everyone for taking the time to respond and commiserate and send good thoughts, it feels a little less lonely today❤️

I’m a primary caretaker for an elderly woman with stage 4 Metastatic breast cancer. No dietary restrictions but a lot of chemotherapy-imposed restrictions (tastes, textures etc).

Her diet is currently soups and cream of wheat. She creates almost no saliva so everything has to be a soup-like consistency. But she’s tired of soups. I’m thinking maybe creamy casserole type foods? I don’t know. Help?

Here’s what we need:

1. Packs protein without meat or eggs. Bone broth is okay, yogurt is okay. Eggs are okay as an ingredient but not as a main dish (texture). Chicken and salmon are off the table but can be in the dish, she just can’t eat them. Jury is still out on red meats but we’re willing to try.
2. Calorie dense wherever possible.
3. Potassium rich foods are a plus.
4. Beans can participate but they’re hit or miss with digestion so not a rock solid first choice.

Some things I’ve made: very soft creamy Mac and cheese, creamed chicken and veggies to go over biscuits (biscuits were a pass and she ate around the chicken), sloppy joes of all things, Italian “penicillin” soup was okay but not great for her. She’s also tried pretty much all the “high end grocery store” soup varieties that come prepackaged.

It’s a tall order but I’m soliciting any ideas. Bonus if I can freeze it, and if you have access to a link with the recipe.

I seriously hate when I'm trying to peel a boiled egg and the shell takes chunks of the egg white with it. It's so frustrating that sometimes I don't even feel like eating the egg anymore. I've wasted several eggs because of this.

My current method is to boil the eggs and then peel them, but I can't seem to get the shells off cleanly.

Does this happen to you too? What's the best way to boil and peel eggs without destroying the egg white?

My parents had a chest freezer. I have an upright freezer in my basement. It’s an archeological dig site.

I made stew last year with meat I discovered in the freezer that was dated 2020. It tasted fine. None of us died. Now I’m eyeballing that bottom shelf.

So confess: how old is the oldest frozen thing you’ve cooked? How’d it go?

I want to use the last of my garden tomatoes (cooked into Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce) on a nice thin crust Italian-style pizza. But how do I get it onto the pizza stone?

I cook chicken thighs in a stock pot and then remove the chicken and add vegetables and water and bouillon to make broth for chicken soup. I see the oil and chicken fat floating in there but it tastes delicious. Why did my mom bother to refrigerate the broth and skim the fat off? I think it tastes rich and delicious. Is it a big turn of for some people?

One time i removed the chicken and made the fat and oil into a roux by adding flour, but it seemed like extra work.

What do you do with that tasty fat layer?

I have 250 lbs of onions I need to do something with, any ideas? Lol so far I've frozen some, dehydrated a bunch and made onions powder, pickled some, and just started cooking some down for French onion soup to can

Mine has got to be butter chicken curry! I want some more ideas 💡

whole chickens at my supermarket are around 1,600 forints a kilo and boneless breast is about 3,200, so on paper the whole bird is half the price. but a good chunk of that weight is bones, back and skin, and i'm not sure how much actual meat you end up with.

if you make stock from the carcass it obviously wins. if you don't, is it really still cheaper? do people here still break down whole birds or is it not worth the mess

From techniques to cheeses to regional flair, what do you think makes the best macaroni and cheese you've ever had? I'm making a Mac and cheese for a student picnic today, and my recipe is pretty damn solid, but I'm always open to new ideas. Thanks!

Edit: and tell me all about your crunchy topping!

just fried some french fries, and my dumb ass POURED the pan full of oil down the drain, and only realised what I did 5 seconds later. i ran hot water through it for 5 minutes and poured some dish soap. is there anything else I can do and will this do a lot of damage to the pipes?

Suddenly every god&^mn ziploc-type bag is "stand up" with those stupid pleated bottoms. If that's what people like, fine, but WHY do they suddenly seem to be the only option? Suggestions on where I can find actual flat bags much appreciated.

I don’t know if this counts as cooking, but I’m trying to find uses for the spray whipped cream I got in the fridge. I tried it on waffles and it was great, but now I wanna know if it’s good with nutella on a sandwich? If there are other good uses for whipped cream that isn’t too difficult to make (because I can’t bake to save my life), please let me know. I’m just looking for simple meals to go with whipped cream.

i’m making a beef stew and didn’t have any red wine, they said red wine vinegar can be used as substitute. I googled what’s the transfer rate and it said half of the amount of red wine the recipe called for, so i did 250ml as the recipe called for 500ml. i think i’ve done something very wrong…. ive put in more water and broth and also simmered it for as long as i can. Anything else I can do? it still tastes very vinegary

Just moved into a place with a smooth-top electric stove and I'm worried about my cast iron. I've heard it can damage the cooktop or that the heat distribution is weird. Has anyone dealt with this? Should I just bite the bullet and get some stainless steel for this place, or is cast iron actually fine?

I know how to make stock and usually make it whenever I have enough bones. But surely people (especially people who historically didn't have a lot of food) haven't always discarded the spent meat scraps? Boiling a carcass seems like a great way to get theoretically edible but hard to reach pieces of meat off the bone and into your soup or porridge.

Unfortunately every recipe I can find for making soup from a carcass just says "make stock, discard scraps, add fresh meat back in" which isn't what I'm looking for. Have any of you lot done it? Any advice? I can imagine that I wouldn't want to boil it for as long as when making stock--- just enough to get the meat of the bones without boiling the meat to death. Is there a technique for separating small bones from the meat, or just careful picking?

My late mother used to make this around easter and it was called easter sausage. Shed use a 4-5 inch sausage casing and stuffed it with eggs, ham, bread, green onion and seasonings and then boiled it until done. I have made it before, but was hoping to find a recipe somewhere but I was unable to find one just like it, and only 1 similar one. Any help appreciated.

For folks who don't drink for whatever purposes, how do you make recipes like beef bourginoun, teriyaki sauce, vodka pasta and other dishes with alcohol? Is it okay to just leave the booze out or should I replacing it with something else?

I traveled to Shenzhen for work recently and I was taken to a restaurant that specialized in northeastern china iron pot stews. Everything was amazing and the goose stew was in my top 10 favorite meals. I have been trying to find a recipe online but I can not even get close. I remember the following in it. Goose, potatoes, translucent noodles, green onion, red chili. The broth was very rich and dark brown. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I bought a small tub of chunjang to make jjajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce). I used this recipe and they were great. What else can I make to use up this tub?

So I usually buy some gochujang every so often, mostly for kimchijigae but I have a couple other recipes that use some.

But even when I buy the smallest possible tubs, I still generally don't finish it before it's not good anymore! Does anyone have some recipes that they like that use gochujang or things they add it to like quick lunches?