Re-doing the menus

For a few months Activities has been putting the weekly menus on the wall in our rooms so we can see what will be served. I have to say I never usually look at it. It is on a regular 8.5" x 11" piece of paper. It is used as a working copy and is frequently changed. Sometimes there are Post-it's placed over an old entrée and written in longhand. I thought the menus needed a better look.

When I lived in my first nursing home, I worked part-time for a while coordinating communications. During that time I sometimes did wordprocessing. I still typed back then with one hand. I would do flow sheets, newsletters, and even the menus. They posted the whole week's menu on both units each week. I thought a similar system would work well here. I did not ask the nursing home's management or the dietitian if it was okay. If they do not want them, I will just keep them for myself. I can use them to view the menu on my PC.

As I put the menus into their new format, I realized that I have been eating some of these menu items ever since I moved to a nursing home over 20 years ago. I guess nursing home managers do not feel they have to change menu items very often. They change menus twice a year, winter and summer. But the foods are pretty much the same.

I started looking for vegetarian or vegan recipes. I wanted to see if we could change the breakfast menu. They stick with the old standbys of eggs, sausage, bacon, ham sometimes, triangle shaped frozen home fries, and an egg product that looks less than healthy when you bake it in the oven. They cut the baked egg product in squares. And depending on the day, sometimes they look just awful.

Though it does not taste that bad, it does not taste like a real egg either. I have been eating this type of egg product for probably 16 or 17 years. When I moved to my first nursing home, they did not serve eggs every day and I did not want them. I also don't care for fried eggs. This nursing home never fries eggs. My first nursing home did. But I never wanted to find out  what a fried egg tasted like when it was cold. So I never had a conventional fried egg there.

The scrambled eggs there were not good. One of the cooks did a pretty good job with them but she used a lot of salt. The cooking there was pretty plain. They did have oatmeal every day – which was runny. I seldom ate it.

My breakfast consisted of a piece of whole wheat toast with peanut butter/or two and a bowl of Cheerios. Occasionally it was bran flakes and I put part of a small box of raisins (which I purchased) in it.

Once in a while the cooks used pasteurized eggs and made scrambled eggs for me. It was just something special they used to do. I did not ask them.

So today I went off on an adventure trying to see what else we could have for breakfast other than the same old same old.

I saw that they use chickpeas as a protein source. There is one recipe for baked chickpeas with waffles and syrup. On this vegan's website she shows how to bake chickpeas to sort of taste like chicken. She shares that chicken was her "used to be" favorite food. There are other recipes to bake chickpeas with different flavors.

I wonder if we can convert some residents into eating onion or garlic flavored baked chickpeas – instead of the usual chips, candy, and individually packed pastries they gobble up now?

Maybe after a few suggestions from me and some sampling in planning, we might be able to see if nursing home residents can learn to eat differently.,