Day 32: Soft Food Diet

Day 32 of Double Jaw Surgery

Even though it was such a struggle to eat those mashed potatoes and fried rice a couple days ago, I had to keep trying to eat soft food and not just stick to liquids. The day after, however, I did just eat thicker soups, but at least they were more substantial.

I started with my great breakfast shake again, which filled me up pretty well because of the oats. In fact, I couldn't even drink it all because it was a lot and since my diet has been so light, my tummy gets full quickly.

Then I treated myself to a relaxing pedicure and started reading this book that my former Regional President gifted us when we worked on a project together last year. I can't believe I'm just NOW reading it. I only got through a couple chapters but I'm intrigued.

The last couple weeks I've been craving some Chinese Congee, a.k.a. rice porridge. I've never made it myself and remember my mom making it as we grew up. It was hearty, filling, and warm. So I scoured Pinterest and Instagram for recipes because I wanted to make sure I did it right. You typically would cook it with chicken, which also provides the stock, but since I can't really chew on anything yet, I used chicken stock instead. Below is how I made it:


Servings: 4

4 Cups Chicken Stock
6 Cups Water
1 Cup Jasmine Rice
3 thick slices of fresh Ginger
White Pepper and Salt
Sesame Oil
Low Sodium Soy Sauce

1. Rinse rice 4-5x until water runs clear to wash away all the impurities and "flour"
2. Soak rice in water for 10-15 minutes in a bowl
3. Pour chicken stock and water into a heavy bottom pot large enough (rice will expand on top of water amount)
4. Pour water out of bowl and dump rice into pot and bring to boil at medium high heat
5. Cover and lower temp to medium low. Let simmer for 1 hour
6. Stir occasionally and you'll notice the rice to break up. Stir frequently the last 20-30 minutes to prevent it from burning on the bottom
7. Check the consistency, I like it medium thickness and turn off heat
8. Remove the ginger pieces, season with salt and white pepper and some sesame oil
9. Pour yourself a bowl of congee and add some soy sauce if you want and enjoy!

You can save the rest for the following couple days to reheat. It's super easy to eat with this jaw situation because you can still slurp it off of the spoon if you can't properly insert a spoon in your mouth yet. Once I can eat better and chew, I'd garnish it with some chopped green onions, poached egg, shredded chicken, and whatever else I feel like. You can play with it too!

I know I said this was filling, but I still was hungry... so I heated up some leftover Tomato Bisque and made some scrambled eggs, feeling extra ballsy. The combination was delicious, however eating the eggs was pretty tough. Even though they were scrambled, they still had a thick consistency and it was hard to slurp it off my spoon because my jaw still didn't open wide enough.

 I'll just wait to eat eggs for another week or so.. lol.