Cooking for eating with one hand

Mystery Egg

Hi folks. I'm cooking for an older person with the use of only one hand at the moment. This person is highly independent and might feel a little humiliated by having their food cut up for them. I'm looking for suggestions for "traditional" foods that can be eaten with one hand when served just "as is".

Today I made a shepherd's pie which went down well. Anything spicy wouldn't be enjoyed. So chilli, curry and fiddly things like tacos are probably out. Any suggestions?

Dial Hard

Stews, casseroles, tagines, pasta dishes, risottos, pilafs. Loads of options, really.

You could also do a Roald Dahl's Dad for them and sharpen one tine of a fork for them so they could use the edge of the fork as a one-handed cutting tool. They could have softer things like omelette etc. that would be easy to cut that way.

nachouser

I'd be going down the line of casseroles, pasta bakes with penne pasta. Baby potatoes are easily split in half with the side of a fork. Lasagne etc. Chicken or chorizo veggie soups eaten with a spoon. I'm sure you'll get lots of suggestions.

Mystery Egg

Thanks!

If you have any specific recipes to recommend they're welcome.

I'm going to do a veg/rice/chicken/chorizo thing, and a batch of veg soup.

They also need to be easily reheatable items as I'm dropping food as and when I can.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058295854/cooking-for-eating-with-one-hand

Slow cooker would be my recommendation. Generally the food that comes out will be very tender and easy to break up and eat with a spoon. Also easy to chew, if they have any difficulty with that

Other bonuses are that they're often cheaper to run if doing batch cooking, and quite safe. You can just chuck in the ingredients and let it run for the day, the food doesn't really dry out much

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058295854/cooking-for-eating-with-one-hand

I’d say it’s worth asking if they mind, most people wouldn’t really (I know myself if I couldn’t use one arm I’d appreciate the help and certainly wouldn’t be offended)

nachouser

Chicken breasts, cut up into small chunks. Red / Green / Yellow bell peppers chopped into small squares. Basically, de-core it and then cut it into 8 or so pieces. A couple of white or red onions chopped into 4 pieces and then split apart. A couple of courgettes like you were dividing up a baguette into slices and then cut them in half so each one is a semi-circle. Sear the chicken a bit in the bottom of a big pot with some olive oil and then chuck everything in along with a decent sauce; tomato and garlic or something like that. I like Loyd Grossman. Get it bubbling then leave it to simmer for a couple of hours. It'll all be very tender so won't need any cutting. Ideally, they'd chuck some shaved parmesan on top but not sure how to do that with one hand:-)

Also, add a bunch of penne pasta.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120575765#Comment_120575765

If going for rice & chorizo dish maybe a paella or something like this?

Alun

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120575695#Comment_120575695

You can buy things called sporks, a cross between a spoon and a fork, some (usually the ones designed for taking on camping trips) even have a sharp-ish serrated edge on one side to let you cut things too.

Dave_The_Sheep

As someone who camps regularly, they're fairly shite though.

People have mentioned general dishes, to which I'll add most one-pot dishes have the benefit of being able to be eaten with a fork / spoon, but since you asked for some specific ones...

• Can't beat a good mushroom risotto. Of course any risotto would do.
• Sausage, kale, gnocchi. Can eat this with a spoon.
• Creamy garlic chicken. Can be done with rice, diced potatoes, pasta.
• Swedish meatballs. Similar to the above, versatile for whatever other veg/starch you want to do them with.

The Hill Billy

You could also consider getting them a runcible spoon which may make feeding themselves easier.

It's a spoon-shaped fork with one of the outside tines slightly sharpened for cutting. Spoon, fork and knife all in one.

squonk

If you have access to a multi cooker with pressure cook capability it’ll save you time. You could make stew. Brown your meat then add stock, tomatoe Passat a or whatever liquid you’d fancy, a few chopped veggies and put it on pressure for maybe 20 minutes. I’d then probably add in tge bill of my veg like baby potatoes and carrotts etc and bring back to pressure for 10 mins or so you’ll have very tender meat and it’ll all be very easily ate with one fork or spoon. Also great for batch cooking. You can also do risotto very easily or one pot pasta. Lots of recipes out there.