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Oh, and congratulations on your new blog.

creamed soups, soft scrambled eggs with creme fraiche and chives, milkshakes, smoothies ( a little healthier than milkshakes), bananas with peanut butter and honey, mashed potatoes...
Good luck!

Ah, I know the dilemma well. I broke my jaw in March and had to be on a liquid diet for six weeks. Even after the six weeks were over, I had to ease back into eating solids very, very slowly, and still now my jaw does not function like it used to.

For the first week I ate a lot of blended soups (it was cold and I felt extremely ill). Tomato-lentil, chickpea-spinach, etc. I lost weight very quickly and got weak, so I decided that I needed to up the nutrients and especially the fat. I started blending full fat yogurt with berries for breakfast. It was wonderful, and one of the few things I'm still doing. I also started making things like peanut soup (a vegetarian version of the Surinamese dish), and daal with lots of ghee. I ate a lot of quinoa porridge and I would have spoons of almond butter or mashed avocado for a snack. Once, I am embarrassed to admit, I was craving ketchup to such an extent that I made mashed potatoes and ate them with ketchup on them. It was totally disgusting and not something that I repeated.

Here's what I missed: RAW VEGETABLES!!!! Crunchy salads and things like that. Also, food made by someone other than me. For six whole weeks it was basically impossible to get takeaway or go to a restaurant. I don't normally do those things much, but I really missed it when I couldn't. Also, chocolate. Sigh.

My first non liquid meal after six weeks was a Thai red curry with tofu at my local Thai place. It was delicious but terrifying after such a long time eating pastes through a straw and with a tiny child-sized spoon. It was also not helped by the fact that two seconds in I ate a very hot chili and spent the entire time coughing desperately. Still, it was nice to get back in the saddle, food-wise. And I can assure you that in the intervening months, my immersion blender has been gathering dust in the cupboard under the sink!

Ice cream! Lots and lots of it.

Hazelnut gelato. Pear gelato. Lots of gelato.

Custard.

I sense a theme here. I mean, sure pureed soups and all that are great for the nutrition value but why not use this as an excuse to overindulge. I know I would. Of course, I also know I'd get seriously sick of all the sugar.

Cream of wheat would be good. You can mix in peanut butter or jam.

My co-worker just got her tonsils removed. She was told she can't have dairy because it makes to phlegm-y? Were you told the same thing? Unfortunately, this means you cant have any of those yummy yogurt/ice cream/soups mentioned above. Be strong. You can do it.

I hope you have a good recovery!

I would make a lot of blended soups like vichyssoise and cream of mushroom, etc. I definitely wouldn't go the canned route though. I think preparing good food is almost as nice as eating good food.

Maybe you could even try blending a nice french onion soup - cheese contains vital proteins. You need it! ;)

Plus, your digestion system will need an period of easing solids back in as well.

If you don't own an immersion blender, treat yourself to one now. I think mine was $20, and it's by far the best bang for your buck on a kitchen gadget (imo anyways). 101 cookbooks soup section has a lot of blended soups that are still really flavorful. Just soup for a week will be boring, but they will do a nice job of balancing all the ice cream, popsicles, and gelato by bringing the savory back. Also, vegetable purees (mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, anything really). Hot & sour soup.

And when you want to just slurp something that takes no effort, I've always been a fan of both Naked and Bolthouse Farms smoothies/juice drinks. Some of them are protein drinks, others are just packed with lots of fruits and/or vegetables.

Scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs with melted cheese. With hot sauce. with herbs...(I like scrambled eggs).

Potato leek soup. Cream of (some vegetable) soup. Pudding. Ice cream/milk shakes/smoothies. Blend some peanut butter into that milkshake for some protein.

Would risotto do? It's not completely smooth, but if you cook the rice enough, it's not spikey or crunchy.

Weeks of being wired shut after a broken jaw, couldn't stomach those instant breakfasts in a can, so everything started going into the blender. Started out with things like mac & cheese (soft already, not too drastic a change) and progressed to pizza (took some work if the crust was crunchy), and ultimately ended up with a tray of glasses containing easter dinner (ham, potatoes with gravy, green beans, and dessert). Worked for me, but got to the point where nobody would want to eat with me after seeing how most of my meals looked after the blender. 4 weeks and 40lbs later I got to chew again, and have never taken food for granted since.

Just to back up Erinlovestoeat, it is VERY important that you don't clog your digestive system with foods like cheese, bread, etc. Start with salads, fruit and steamed vegetables for the first day. Then ease into the rest, slowly increasing the quantity of cloggy foods as the week moves on. I believe, though I am no expert, that it takes approximately 3 days for your digestive system to get back to what it was. It may seem silly, but you will regret it if you start out the first day with a cheesy pizza.

When I had my tonsils out a zillion years ago I started with all the above, soft ice cream, jello, shakes, mom would make me chicken broth with an egg dropped in, milk toast. When it finally started to feel better I would eat tuna salad on soft bread with cream of anything soups, scrambled eggs, mashed potatos things that would not irritate the throat and that sometimes took trial and error.

I just got mine out in June! It took three weeks to get back to normal. At first all I could eat were lots of flavor ice pops (box of 100 in 5 days) and drink a lot of gatorade/room temp water. The key to stay hydrated since it staves off the pain. I also ate mushed up bananas and mashed potatoes to get the pain meds down (if you get liquid pain meds remember that the pharmacist could add a flavor so it won't taste so bad, I had bubble gum flavored Vicodin).

As I recovered I added buttered noodles (the no yolks kind you get for chicken soup), applesauce, and mashed sweet potatoes (mmm sweet nutrition). Jello became my best best best friend in the whole wide world! It was the only thing that tasted like anything. I actually never ate ice cream during the whole thing because it made me all phlegmy.

As you start the sloughing the new skin will get exposed and then you'll get super sensitive to anything cold/hot/scratchy. Eventually I got tired of not eating food and I started eating tortilla chips by the end of my second week. I chewed them up a lot and it helps "exfoliate" the scabs. I also invested in one of those tongue scrapers because I couldn't taste anything the first week or so because my mouth and throat were so coated. I never thought I would love bland food but it's all I craved for a week and a half.

During my healing I made a list of all of the foods I wished I was eating and it became the menu for the week I could finally eat.

Good luck with the surgery, it's a painful recovery, but so completely worth it! I haven't had a sore throat/ear infection since.

I'm really surprised at all of the suggestions for alcohol and hot/intense foods. Pain meds don't really mix with a lot of those things, and vomiting is the last thing you want to do (trust me! I did it right after the surgery and I had doctors running to force me to stop. It was so painful!). Plus I would think the acidity would hurt.

The best thing I ate after mouth surgery was butter. You just let it melt and ''absorb'' through your mouth tissues - you don't even need to swallow! And it tastes great...

@howtoeateverything, on consideration I really can't stress enough the importance of making sure you're getting plenty of protein. The thing is, most liquid foods don't have much, and it is so easy to get too little and feel really weak, which in turn slows your recovery. Also, good fat. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but I was tempted to answer the fat/calories question with lots of (melted) ice cream, which in retrospect wasn't a great idea because it's kind of nutritionally barren. Avocado, nut butters, spoons of hummus straight from the container - those were the things that really made me start to feel better physically.

Good luck with the recovery. I hope you start to feel better soon!

MadelynRodriguez--thanks for the recipe suggestions, and ohmigod, that pizza looks so good. It helps that I'm craving greens something fierce nowadays... I'm the kind of person who, although I have a sweet tooth, will try to dump as much vegetables on everything I eat as possible, and spinach pizza is one of my favorite methods! But maybe I'll wait a few days, like Tconrastas said.

Hungrysailor--ha, I know exactly what you mean! My boyfriend's only meal suggestion post-surgery was his constant joke of "meat smoothies," which I kept saying, "Eww, gross!" to... until I realized that the trick of blending up chicken and rice and putting it in soup was basically the same thing. I feel like I'm doing my own "Will It Blend?" series. Luckily I haven't grossed out everyone too much yet :)

Gingercookiewithlime--thanks for your comments with regard to the sloughing--that's the part I'm most worried about right now, so it's good to have some suggestions on how to deal with it. And it's nice to hear that those suggestions involve eating food that's not the consistency of babyfood! Good call on the tongue scraper, too--I won't gross anyone out with the details here, but it'll be a nice alternative to brushing my teeth, which is really hard to do when you can't open your mouth much and it hurts to spit.

Annabanannas--you're absolutely right--it's day three today, and it's way harder than before. The first day was actually the easiest--I was so loopy on all the various anesthetics and narcotics that I was eating and talking and laughing all day. Day two was harder, and day three got off to a rough start, but hopefully this should be the hardest it gets.

GirlFromJetCity--oh man, I hadn't thought of that, and that sounds so good! Same with peanutbutter's butter suggestion, pjracz10's chicken broth plus egg, and Skythe's milkshakes. And oh man, hungrychristel/lexophile's Nutella suggestion--yummm! Plus, what with being mostly unable to chew, I have an excuse to eat it straight from the jar!

Caley--yeah, you're totally right on that front. I'm trying to stay extra-mindful of how much protein I'm getting, because I definitely feel a difference between when I get enough and when I don't.

And janaatwg--wish I could do the alcohol, but I've a feeling that'll have to wait. Perhaps for a "hooray for being totally recovered!" party, which I think is definitely in order :)

Thank you again for all your suggestions! Please excuse me if I missed your name--I'm running on a doomed combo of only a few hours of sleep and a lot of Percocet :)

I love buying the cheap Maggi powdered chicken broth for when I'm out of commission ... Overcook a smidge of white rice in that .... mmmm. And lots and lots of ice cream, of course. Last time I had a wisdom tooth out I took the rest of the day off work, rented Pedro Almodovar movies and ate chocolate ice cream all day long.

I love the before and after meals - it reminds me of Passover! But in terms of the lack of chewing, you want something with sustenance that doesn't get old. When I had my wisdom teeth removed, I certainly got sick of the milkshakes. In all honesty, the dish that made me the happiest was broccoli cheese soup with hunks of crusty bread cut up and soaked in the soup! :)

Carioca--can you believe I've never had vichyssoise before? With you and everyone else recommending it, I've a feeling I'll be trying it for the first time very soon.

klizco--my version of that is lemon Italian ices and endless DVDs of The (American) Office :)

beckyleeprice--I'm so glad you found it too! I'm sorry you're also stuck not chewing, and I hope you recover fast!
There are a lot of great suggestions here already for interesting and nutritious meals, but here's my two cents as well. Protein and veg are also things I miss really badly (especially because pain medications can slow down your digestive system... if you catch my drift). My solution to that recently has been stuff like steamed/boiled veggies thrown into the food processor (you can get these precooked, if you're feeling really low), or smooth leafy vegetable dishes like creamed spinach. You also might want to google "green smoothies," which let you get fruits and veggies in at the same time--I like to do about half a cup of spinach with some frozen berries and half a banana, all whizzed in the blender. And as for meat, see if you can mince it small enough so that you can swallow it without chewing--I put minced chicken in broth and drink it with a straw, so the whole thing goes down easy.
Not to pimp myself out, but I'll probably be posting more ideas and such on my blog, if you'd like to check it out--but in any case, I completely sympathize, and I hope you feel better soon!

Chew on That--ha, totally! Though I've never been a very observant Jew, so sometimes pizza sneaks in anyway... :) Although your Passover talk has reminded me of the deliciousness of matzo brei... maybe that'll be mushy enough for today!

eggyzhe--I miss peanut butter and bread so much! Your meal sounds like heaven. I have a lot to look forward to...

I would eat pastina every second of the day. Maybe mix a little egg in the broth for some protein.