Need Nutrient and Calorie Dense Recipes..

[intothelight]

I am looking for recipes that are nutritious, but also high calorie. Need to gain 25 lbs in 8 weeks, and am battling no appetite. Not a fan of sweets, but love pasta, bread and fruit!

Suggestions?

 

[Rose White]

French cooking tends to be high in carbs and fat. Pasta Alfredo is easy and yummy. Pizza all day with fresh mozzarella. If low appetite then drinkable things: fruit and cream smoothies, soup broth with cream or butter added. Mushy things like congee, oatmeal, cream of wheat. Butter, cream, and bread with everything.

 

[Tinyflame]

Hi @intothelight , know some of these might not be palatable at all (I eat Cream of Wheat or flavored yogurts to get an appetitite), 2nd the recommendation for bread, plus bagels, cheese-stuffed buns; pasta such as 3-cheese manicotti; white or cheese sauces with butter, cream or milk; mayo where you can; Greek yogurt and fruit; avocados; peanut butter (unsweetened if you want, can even be hidden in chili or put in milk shakes ), other nut butters and unsalted nuts; granola; energy bars, protein powders or milk powder added (though I notice a taste with the latter); whole milk where possible; ice cream, ground chick peas, peas, beans or lentils (also humus); sweet potatoes; parmesan cheese is high calorie; pasta prima vera has lots of veggies. Anything you can add to boost calories in lowest volume- butter, mayo, gravy, unsweetened chocolate; rice; lasanga, mac and cheese; cheescake; high-calorie/ low sugar cereals cereals (like turning 2 cups of shreddies into 3/4 cup by microwaving it with some water, plus additives. Grazing if possible. Setting a timer for even 1/4-1/2 cup of nuts, or Trailmixac is very high calorie- esecially if you can snack on it frequently without missing out on real food, adding nuts to yogurt; pretzels, dinner rolls. Breaded plums, Comfort foods. Capitalizing on a craving or time of day you can stomach more. Anything crushed will usually have more calories- 1/2 cup cornflake crumbs will have more calories than 2 cups. Mixing- eg put 2 tablespoons pb on a 1/2 cup ice cream. Muffins are nororiously high calorie / per volume. They often suggest tofu but apart from in a chili I find it tasteless and it increases estrogen (not always desired). Soups and such are good unless they fill you up too much, same with fluids. Also doing less/ being less active.

I think you suggested the beer bread?

(Am sure you you know this one, but a simple white sauce (or cheese, or curry, etc) is 2tblsps (generous) melted butter, add equivalent amount of flour, reduce heat and stir comstantly 3-4 minutes while bubbling, then add approximately 1 1/4 cups milk (or more if adding cheese), plus cheese and or spices or leave plain, can use to make own pasta cheese sauce or alone on veggies, or with veggies and soya sauce or any additives desired. Thinner for cream based soups of course. That and things like lots off pb and butter proper, or excess junk, keep my weight up. )

I'll keep thinking..

 

[Friday]

Aaaargh.

I’ve collated 2 dozen recipes 6 times now… but I keep having bad days and it dies in drafts.

In the interim?

Most of my recipes in this thread are one, the other, or both : What are you having for dinner? (wanna share your recipe?)

And these are 3 of my faaaaave food bloggers

RecipeTin Eats - A Food Blog Serving Up Quick & Easy Dinner Recipes

A food blog with 1500+ delicious, free recipes. Quick and easy dinners, classics done right, incredible one-pot wonders, Asian takeout at home and holiday feasting – it's all here!

www.recipetineats.com

The Pioneer Woman – Recipes, Country Life and Style, Entertainment

Welcome to Ree Drummond's frontier! Find easy recipes, tips for home design, shopping, entertainment and more.

www.thepioneerwoman.com

My Latina Table

My Latina Table is the best place to find truly authentic Mexican recipes and more; from breakfast, to dinner, to dessert and more, you will find what you are looking for here.

www.mylatinatable.com

RecipeTinEats ESPECIALLY check out her sausage rolls & Salisbury steak, but literally every recipe I’ve ever done of hers -dozens- is EXACTLY the ratio I would eventually tweak from others to my best result, with no tweaking needed.

ThePioneerWoman I knew Ree from my homeschooling days, she has massive “everyday” cheats, using commonly found ingredients/concepts/methods and “oomphing” them to knee melting.

MyLatinaTable is just wicked good Latin-Fare, full stop.

 

[Friday]

Also, on the unsolicited advice front (cough) …

Spoiler: Zip it! Recipes, recetas, not blabbermouthing! 😉

I am 4%-6% body fat @ 167-173 pounds. (I’m also 6 feet tall). After I was held prisoner for a few months by some less than gracious hosts, we were airlifted to a German hospital (nobody but nobody is more invested / better at rehab than the Germans. WWII guilt, plus experience, I expect). I was under 100lbs at that point, you could see my hip sockets, and I couldn’t walk down a hallways without going into cardiac arrest.

The DIET they had us on? Was the American-fad-diet of restriction + splurge. Because nothing but nothing causes more near immediate & long term weight gain. Come to find.

Ideally?

- ALWAYS skip breakfast, as the moment anything passes your lips, your body shuts off the store-store-store mechanism present during sleep (conversely, eat something immediately after waking to kick into burning calories).

- Eat at random times, and if possible missing at least one food “group” entirely, during the course of the day. Like all protein+fats one day, all veggies/grains/fruits the next. Then switch it up. And switch it up, again. All this. None of that. Some of that, nothing of this. It keeps your metabolism in a starvation mode where it hoards & stores. Not just in fat deposits, but bone/muscle/organ. As you’re not actually malnourished, but there is a daily gap in the mental “list” of requirements. So today your body is attempting to get necessary vitC from potatoes (you need 5lbs of potatoes to do that), and tomorrow it can’t find minimum protein from all the of veg. Today eat tiny bits of “healhy” things, tomorrow beat your weight in pizza, burgers, fries, So rather than burning anything? It just starts storing-storing-storing.

- Try to keep your activity level at JUST beyond your intake level, to slow your metabolism even further.

- Eat within three hours of going to bed, & ideally, both right before bed & get up for a midnight snack.

^^^ Yep. These are all things people do to LOSE weight in the US. And there’s damn good reason why that doesn’t work for more than a week or three, and then one is waaaaay heavier than they started.

 

[Rose White]

@Friday very helpful! When I was in disorderly eating mode that’s how I ate but with way too much food restriction and replacing most of my meals with beer. Dietician got me on a food schedule (with no food restrictions) and the weight started coming on (finally!!—was way too thin for years). But I think maybe all the restricting meant that my body was primed for storage—waiting for something to store.
Also—not very related but I recently learned that menopausal women gain weight because estrogen is a heart protector and when it drops the body puts on weight to hoard all the estrogen it can—so menopausal women who intentionally lose weight are doing themselves a disservice.

 

[Lionheart]

Protein shakes can put weight on a person. If you are exercising it will build muscle mass and if not your body will store it as fat. Either way, you'll gain weight.

My little recipe for a potent protein shake...

First get some Chocolate Protein powder, (right now I am using what is known as "Muscle Milk").
Add 2 egg whites (separate from yolks and throw yolks out---too much cholesterol) Once blended in a blender, you won't feel the texture or taste the egg whites at all!!!
Peanut butter or PB2 (Creamy unless you prefer a crunchy shake)
Banana(s) (one large or two medium)
whole milk, 2% (or almond milk if you prefer)
A half cup of Greek almond or vanilla yogurt

Blend until you get the consistency you want and enjoy.

I also took the liberty of searching for more protein shake recipes, here is a link...
15 Homemade Protein Shakes – Healthy & Tasty 5-Min Recipes

I wish you the best.

Lionheart

 

[intothelight]

@Friday I absolutely love the Pioneer Woman! Been doing well and averaging 2lbs of weight gain a week. Using real butter, whole milk, a lot of cheese, pasta to my hearts content, and then the milk shakes. On chemo days, there is a weird metallic taste, but dairy seems to neutralize it a bit. Still consume a lot of fruit and veggies. but I am doing better on my protein intake. One area that was really lacking. Prefer our own venison, but adding lamb and my occasional Big Mac. Always have consumed fish, but instead of protein being a twice a week thing, it is now an every meal thing.

 

[Friday]

McDonalds is some of the BEST sick-people food I know of. It’s so hyper-processed that your body barely has to work at all to digest it. Pity it costs more than steak, these days. It’s wicked unhealthy for healthy people, but incrediably healthy for sick people.

I seriously just grabbed a ribeye, broccoli, & potato… for less than a quarter pounder meal >.<

When my son was in & out of Childrens two or three times a week our deal was drive-thru on the way home, or a Frappuccino if he got admitted (Starbucks stands were on 2 different floors). He was still massively underweight, but a few thousand instantly absorbable calories? Reeeeally helped.

 

[Honestly]

I am looking for recipes that are nutritious, but also high calorie. Need to gain 25 lbs in 8 weeks, and am battling no appetite. Not a fan of sweets, but love pasta, bread and fruit!

Suggestions?

I’m seconding all the pizza suggestions. I think salty food can cut through the no appetite esp with low grade nausea.

I also like a very lazy spaghetti cacio e Pepe (basically pasta, reserved salted pasta water, Parmesan, pepper corn and I add peas)

Not sure it’s giving everything calorie wise but really good pork noodle ramen with pork and chicken bone broth and an egg does tend to cut through the appetite barrier for me, esp as you can start with the broth.

I’m big on smoothies esp made with frozen banana and you can add coconut yoghurt and peanut butter (as well as frozen berries etc for the sour appetite cut through attraction).

 

[Friday]

I also like a very lazy spaghetti cacio e Pepe (basically pasta, reserved salted pasta water, Parmesan, pepper corn and I add peas)

This is one of my faaaavorite things. All by itself. Discovered it when I lived in Rome.

Even no longer being able to eat cheese, I still make just cracked pepper pasta. Ditto, a handful of whatever fresh herbs or green thing I happen to have on hand, is a badass add. Or dry hard salami, or whatever happens to strike my fancy in the moment.

I’ll add bacon & egg to it, for pasta carbonara sometimes, too.

 

[littleoc]

Every now and then I get myself a tray of party cheeses, crackers, and other party snack foods like summer sausage bites. You can prep it yourself for much cheaper, if you have the energy (you don't need to put them on party plates, you can eat your cubed cheese right out of the baggy you're storing them in!), and it's got the benefit of feeling like snacks instead of a full meal. You don't have to worry about finishing your plate if you never had one :P

Really takes the stress off of making sure you're getting those calories! I'm often hungry but too tired or cognitive dysfunctional to actually go make food, but snacks like that have brought my weight up to GREATNESS :P

One of my favorite ones is pigs in a blanket. You use cocktail sausages wrapped up in Pillsbury cresant dough (did i spell that right?). Usually two cans dough per one pack of Hillsboro cocktail sausages. Take an unrolled cresant directly out of the can and cut it into three triangles (it's already a triangle so it's not too difficult). Wrap each sausage in dough (just roll it up) and then bake using the temp and time on the dough cans. Extra dough can be rolled up into mini croissants (OH THAT'S THE SPELLING), which you can fill with cream cheese (sugared if you want) and top with butter and cinnamon. They don't take long and if you eat all the sausages, you'll be set lol

Am even lazier one that works with my narcolepsy -- Tyson dinosaur chicken nuggets and those little microwave instant potato cups. For the potatoes, prepare with whole milk or cream instead of water and add butter. (If you're lactose intolerant like me, i usually take 6 lactase supplements with this one.)

Low appetite isn't the same as low energy, but sometimes you can trick yourself into eating these "appetizers and snacks" instead of a meal and it works regardless.

And i second the drink making with Greek yogurt. Icelandic yogurt, skyr, was invented to keep people alive in insanely cold winter temps. It's very thick and amazing by itself, but put that stuff into a blender or drink mixer or whatever with some cream or half-and-half along with blueberries, a touch of maple, bananas, cherries, and its GREAT. i like to make pumpkin or apple pie spice (cloves, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, ground ginger, hopefully not forgetting one right now but I might be) and speinkle it into anything I make to add excitement.

I'm now 150lbs instead of 100lbs after about 2 years -- you can do it too!

ETA: POTATO SALAD and also bean salads!! They come in glass jars and can be soooo hecking good. Pistachios. Mixed nuts (without or with peanuts). Just be careful on the nuts, because they contain lots of phosphorus and you'll drop your calcium intake a bit if you eat them with your calcium rich foods. Though those sargento balanced breaks have the right idea too -- cheese cubes with dried fruit and nuts are amazing snacky things that are easy to munch at. Just, especially if you're an older woman, consider adding calcium back into your body later. And make sure you're getting vitamin D because you need it to properly absorb calcium. :)

Cheesy eggs -- just scramble some eggs and add shredded cheddar to it when it's done cooking. (I suggest cheddar because those probiotics are also helpful.)

You gain energy as you gain the weight you need, so it gets easier to make things later