OT: Very OT but need some help,

Can't help with any suggestions, but I am impressed big time with your planning and organisation.

Good luck with the surgery.

Cheryl, I am trying so hard to get everything in order before I have the surgery that I wrapped Christmas presents yesterday. Today I wash drapes and curtains and baked 8 small meat loaves. Did some of the windows also, but refuse to climb with my knee so they may not all get done if I can't get my dad moving to do them. My sisters have said they think I should go in a nursing home for recovery, LOL yeah sure, but what really gets me is they will not help and since they have been that way in the past and are complaining that I am having the surgery, even though they both know it needs to be done and agree it needs to be done, they just don't want to help with dad, that I am determined I will have everything done prior to going in the hospital and then will just have to pull out meals and heat them up and add a veggie and bread.

Jacquel>Cheryl

Howdy!

Tell someone to get in the car; drive to Boston Market.

Or your longtime Ky. favorite, KFC.

Also try Applebee's for a wonderful Santa Fe Chicken Salad (carry-out available, they'll even bring it to your car).

Call for delivery from whomever will (deliver, that is).

Tonight I sautéed chicken strips in olive oil, sprinkled them w/ Jess Hall's Seasonblend (pepper mix), added some strips of turkey bacon, put the lid on the pan while everything made friends; steamed some broccoli/cauliflower/carrots for a couple of minutes, sprinkled w/ freshly-grated parmesan cheese; rang the dinner bell (actually I hollered "It's ready!") & served up the veggies w/ chicken --- Yum!

KeepItSimple,Sweetie!

More time for quilting.

Ragmop/Sandy---wishing you a speedy, clever recovery (f-i-l discovered "clever recovery" when he was clever enough to follow doctor's orders; speedy recovery followed)

Jacqueline, I don't know about cornbread, but biscuits will freeze and then thaw with a decent texture. You might also buy some of those packages of frozen greens. They cook up with addition of a slice of bacon (which freezes great) into something truly tasty. And for the record, if you undercook spaghetti it can be thawed with good texture. Just toss it into already boiling water for a couple minutes and it's ready for the sauce.

I don't know if this helps or not, but good luck and hope to see you back here soon.

Sunny

Jacquel> I am hoping some of you all can give me some suggestions. As I have

What is Boston Market? We only have one grocery store here in town and it is not a good one either. KFC or Applebees, be cold by the time they drove the 30-45 miles back from getting it. Deliver? Not in this part of the country. Now you think I am being funny but really I am not, we do not have those types of places, I live in the sticks and love it. If any of you all have seen Coal Miners Daughter, the movie, where Loretta goes in and buys that baloney that makes you horny, well that is just five miles above my house. Country folks is what you call us. But I love it. We actually grow most of our food, except for meat, milk, bread, and soft drinks just about everything else is homemade and home gown. Oh and some fruits and veggies that just won't grown in the sticks of KY. Hey this is the truth, I live so far back in the sticks I have to drive for 2 hours any direction to get on an interstate.

Jacquel>Howdy!

buy a bag of frozen chicken breasts, easy to fix. stir fry with frozen vegetable mix, grilled with red peppers, mixed with rice for chicken fried rice (use the rice a roni. Bake some pork chops then when you get ready to serve pour a can of cream of mushroom soup over the top and bake another half hour. Do it in a bag and have no clean up. Have you seen the frozen crock pot meals? Use oven bags for almost everything and you won't have a lot of clean up to do. Hope this helps some. I will be thinking of some more.

You need help! If not from your family, then others. Have you considered getting folks from your church to come in every day for an hour or so? Or perhaps your local health department can send some home helpers -- and if your doctor will certify the need, insurance should pay for that (much cheaper than nursing home sort of places). The need can be for you and/or your father. As to food, I would consider going to the grocery store and loading up frozen dinners -- Healthy Choice, Weight Watchers, etc. are really pretty good, and exceptionally easy. I did the frozen dinner bit for about a month after I had my heart surgery, and they were wonderful! (I also saved a lot of the plastic containers, which I now use for the frozen dinners I make.) BEST OF LUCK!!!!

Jacquel> I am hoping some of you all can give me some suggestions. As I have

Vickki, I have seen the frozen crock pot meals but my dad will not eat anything like that :( He requires a fully cooked meal every day, but he does understand that after my surgery I can't stand and cook like I do now. I do try to keep some type of frozen meal on hand in case I am sick or something, and I mean things that I haven't cooked up because I do keep around 20-30 meals prefixed in the freezer at all times, but I prefixed them. But every time I try to slip one of those bag meals by him he asks me and what kind of package did this come out of. They say he has dementia probably Alzheimer's but it seems to me at times he is pretty darn smart.

Jacquel>buy a bag of frozen chicken breasts, easy to fix. stir fry with frozen

Pasta bake - fry up some mince meat (ground hamburger to you lot over there!). At the same time cook some pasta (spirals / bits / broken up spaghettie). When both are cooked mix together with enough cream to make a "sauce" and stick into an oven dish (non-metal). Cover securely with foil and glad wrap and freeze away.

Shepherd's pie - fry up mince or leftover roast lamb or beef that has been finely chopped. Mix with gravy until a "sloppy" consistency. Stick in oven dish. Top with mashed taters and freeze.

Thanks, I might try the Shepherd's pie but he doesn't care much for pasta so I doubt that I go that route, but I wish I could, plus me being diabetic I don't do well with pasta so I try to not have it often.

Thanks,

Jacquel>Pasta bake - fry up some mince meat (ground hamburger to you lot over

I don't know what kind of knee surgery you are having, but I had an ACL replacement (ligament replacement) on my knee in June, and I was up and about in 3 days. I was actually able to get up and get around when I got home from the hospital, but I was using a walker and was pretty klutzy with it, so DH did the cooking and dog walking.

Actually, the walker gives you great stability standing next to the stove or sink, so you should do fine!

Are meals on wheels available where you are? Might be something worth looking into for the short term.

Julia > You need help! If not from your family, then others. Have you

Jacqueline,

Here's what worked well for me recently after surgery, when I could move around a bit more but still didn't feel like I could spend an hour making a meal. I have a George Forman Grill, so I stocked up on everything I like grilled. The grill cooks things really quickly, even from a frozen state, so food is done in short order. I stocked up on frozen turkey hamburgers, chicken breast, boneless pork chops, etc. I also stocked up on frozen veggies, which I'd cook in the microwave, and stuff like applesauce and canned fruit.

Also, the Cambell's soup site has many recipies that are quick to make and will freeze well.

Marie

Jacquel> I am hoping some of you all can give me some suggestions. As I have

I believe Boston Market is a chain restaurant that decided to sell packages of food in the freezer section of grocery stores. I've never seen one of the restaurants, but the frozen food is expensive and over rated.

BBQ Chicken is easy in a crock pot--add one cut up chicken to pot, add one bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce, cook on high for one hour and then let simmer on low for several hours. The meat will be falling off the bones. Yum.

If you don't have a crock pot you can do something similar in the oven. Place chicken pieces in one layer on a baking sheet and pour BBQ sauce over them and cook at 350 for an hour. The meat won't be falling off the bones, but it will be yummy. Debra in VA See my quilts at

One of the things I do when I know that cooking is going to be disrupted is make up a bunch of calzone and stromboli and tuck them in the freezer. Snatch one out and nuke it and you have lunch, grab a stomboli and nuke it and serve it with a salad and you have supper. All of the favorites at my house involve tomatos, or cheese, or both, but you could just as easily fill them with anything. That dish everybody makes with leftover turky, the one where you wrap the turkey and mushrooms in biscuit dough (like a cinnamon roll) then bake it up and serve it with gravy, also freezes gracefully. I reckon looking at my own description that that is sort of a southern style stromboli. You could do it with darn near anything, not just the tukey. My greatgrandpa was fond of steak and kidney pie, but my great grandma did just awful things to meat when she cooked it (seventh day adventist). So when I was a teenager I learnd to cook that and make single serving pot pies and turnovers for him, those froze well.

Instead of freezing slices of cornbread, why not make it up as muffins? Put a bunch of catheads and corn muffins in the freezer and you save yourself a fair bit. Though nuked isn't as good as fresh out of the oven I don't think anybody has ever died of it.

NightMist whose other gramma would have simply perished to see me put cold or nuked biscuits on the table

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 04:13:37 -0500, Jacqueline from KY wrote:

Make corn bread in cupcake papers- great to add whole corn & chopped onion to batter. Cook, then freeze what's left, Take out what you want at one time to warm up.

---------------------------------------------------- Henny Penny Casserole- freezes well

cooked chicken stuffing mix frozen mixed vegetables- (corn, green beans, carrots) cream of chicken soup

cut chicken off bones enough for 4 people make stuffing, divide in half. into each half stir half the chicken and half the vegetables and half the soup put each half in a buttered casserole. Freeze one and bake the other covered at 350 degrees F for 20-30 minutes until hot. Cheese on top is good, or canned French fried onion rings. Bake another 5 minutes to melt cheese or crisp up onion rings.

Who will stay with your Dad while you are in the hospital? There isn't much knee surgery that you can go home the same day. Ask your doctor, because you could end up worse than you are now if you aren't careful & overdo too much or God forbid you could fall trying to get up. If it is a knee replacement count on needing help just to get out of bed for the first week. If it is arthroscopic surgery maybe a day or 2 will be enough.

Jane in NE Ohio

Nope meals on wheels are no longer here, or if they are I haven't heard of them in ages. But I will check in to that, although I don't think they would feed me.

Jacquel>Are meals on wheels available where you are? Might be something worth