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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1970 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 5, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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I'd normally ask this in the wellness thread, but it doesn't quite fit.

My father is going through chemotherapy, which has absolutely trashed his appetite, and he has some issues with swallowing due to previous radiation treatment. He's managing to keep his weight stable now by pounding shakes made from ensure, ice cream, protein powder, and peanut butter, but he doesn't exactly enjoy it.

I recently made him bread pudding from scratch (with homemade bread) and he nearly made himself sick eating it. I think part of it is that his usual staples aren't quite appetizing enough to cut through the side effects of the treatment, and he might have better luck with something new.

Cooks of themotte, can you recommend any recipes that are tasty, easy to swallow, and have absolutely degenerate amounts of calories in each serving? The doctor has said that all the usual rules about healthy eating are out the window here, if it tastes and smells good enough to give him an appetite, and it fattens him up, it's a win.

I have a bacon colcannon that might be of interest. Start by preparing some potatoes as you would if you were making regular mashed potatoes. Then, fry up some bacon, remove the bacon from the pan to chop up but leave the rendered fat in, and fry up some onion and cabbage in the bacon fat until they're as well-cooked as you like. Mix the vegetables, bacon, and bacon fat into the potatoes, and add salt+pepper to taste. Add more cream and/or mix in some grated cheese for even more calories. You could also bake this in the oven with a cheese or buttered-crumb topping.

Damn, I might make this for myself if he doesn't like it

This is one of the rare occasions where I would earnestly encourage him to ask his doctor about trying marijuana if it's locally legal/available and he's not diametrically opposed. It really does do wonders for stimulating appetite, and there are ways to get the medical benefits while limiting the psychoactive effects.

A lot of people have brought it up, and he's not keen on the idea.

Desserts are going to be a solid win here. This is one of my favorites, it takes very little effort, is delicious, and has a ton of calories.

Make a graham cracker crust (look up any recipe you care to, they are all basically graham cracker crumbs + melted butter + sugar), press into a 9x13 pan. Cream together 8 oz cream cheese and 1/2c peanut butter, fold in 1c cool whip and 1c powdered sugar. Spread over graham cracker crust. Prepare 2 packages of instant chocolate pudding, pour over previous layer. Spread rest of cool whip container over pudding layer. Chill in the fridge for at least a couple of hours, decorate with some shaved chocolate if you like.

It's obviously very empty calories, but I assume that is fine given the criteria you set out. It goes down easily (cause it's all soft stuff), and I at least think it tastes absolutely delicious.

Reminds me of a Twitter thread (eigen robot maybe?) where his dad was losing weight while home health was trying to get him to eat healthy and he finally just made him bananas foster and his dad ate all of it, followed by him being like "what are we doing here"

So, bananas foster?

Anything with heavy cream in it. Even straight, if he likes the taste. (I do, but I'm a little bit weird.)

1 cup of heavy cream has 500 calories, is low in sugar, heavy in fats.

...well, assuming he's not lactose intolerant. Otherwise, akward.

Tzadziki, ajvar, lutenitsa, katuk, Kyopolou - almost any balkan and middle eastern spread/dip is easy to swallow, digest and ungodly tasty Fresh mozarella with good olive oil Humus. Take good white cheese (turkish, bulgarian style, feta is tad too rich and creamy) crumble it finely and mix with honey. Any kind of caviar paste. Dulce de leche Different types of pates or foie gras Crepes are amazing and you could stuff them with melted cheese or nutella. Home made brioche - modernist cuisine recipe is rock solid. remove the crusts and the rest melts. Mushrooms in lots of butter. Sous vide potatoes in butter. Japanese milk bread Salmon mi cuit. (triple check safety here)

Those are the tenderest foods I can come up with.

Home made French toast was always fun. Probably pretty similar to the bread pudding. Its also very easy.

Fudge can be easy to make or really difficult depending on the ingredients you use. It is super calorie dense. Dedicated stores with fudge will usually make all kinds of weird and fun flavors. Maybe find one he enjoys and then try to replicate it at home?

If he wants more savory stuff I've always been partial to stews and chillis. Add cheese and creams for more calories.

Cheeseburger casserole with heavy cream

2 lb ground beef 1 lb bacon 8 eggs 1 cup heavy whipping cream 12 oz. Cheddar cheese 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp black pepper (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Cook beef and bacon separately over medium heat until brown. Place beef in a casserole pan, add the bacon, mix well, and spread in an even layer. Mix eggs, cream, salt, (and pepper) well. Add 3/4 of the Cheddar cheese. Pour the batter over the beef and bacon and sprinkle the remaining Cheddar on its top. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes until golden brown.

Its a carnivore recipe, so extremely calorie dense, and easy to digest. How health it is depends on your personal level of trust with nutritional science.

My God that sounds so good. What’s your food background?

the recipe sounds great but I am not entirely certain if this will fraternize well with your parent's digestive tract considering how overwhelming all of this sounds together with the heavy fats, there's a reason why the ice cream shakes work

I have an MCAD deficiency. I’ll be fine.

Nothing fancy, I do most of the cooking in our house and just try to keep things simple and relatively quick. I used to go more all out and do more sophisticated stuff, but nowadays I just shoot for quick, relatively cheap, and tasty. This is just one of about a dozen or so casserole variations I do, none of them take very long, and you basically just throw whatever ingredients you have into an AI and it will come up with good suggestions.

Thanks! This is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.

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