High-calorie, delicious, versatile, easy-to-prepare stuff...

[WinAce]

Here's my problem... (one of them, anyway!)

I'm 5 foot 2 and weight 90 pounds. Over the past few months, I've been trying to gain weight, with limited success, and have made alot of changes to my diet. In the process, I've largely abandoned fruits and veggies and now concentrate almost entirely on meat, dairy and baked stuff. I try to get at least 3 meals of 1000+ calories a day, along with however many snacks (ranging from 200-500 cals) I can randomly fit in.

This seems to be working--I was at 86 pounds just weeks ago--but it's made my diet somewhat more boring than I'd like. I can no longer afford to indulge in breakfast cereals, for example, because they'd fill me up while giving 400 cals, at most, with milk added. Typically, now, I'll eat something like 3 of those fatter hot dogs and a bagel instead (something like 900 cals). Or, if I'm in a hurry, an apple pie and a concentrated protein shake (600-1000 cals). Or 9-12 strips of bacon and a couple eggs. And so on.

I'm looking to expand my horizons, so I'm looking for all kinds of recipes that are delicious, perhaps exotic, remarkably nutritious, and still easy to prepare (a prerequisite for someone whose cooking skills are practically limited to boiling water...) Reasonable cost would be a nice plus, too; when you have to eat as much as I do, those food bills really add up, so obviously, I can't cook T-bone steaks three or four times a day.

At the same time, there's a reasonable chance my girlfriend might be brave enough to taste whatever I cook, so I wouldn't want to give her a heart attack from all the fat, grease, cholesterol, etc. I have to consume. (How do you make something really high in calories without making it disgusting or ill-advised for someone on a normal diet?)

So, here's the "fatten Allan up!" thread. I can't say I'm that picky an eater, although I usually much prefer beef, chicken, and pork to the other meats (and fish). And pastries--lots and lots of pastries. I also gulp down a bunch of random stuff like macaroni (cooked in milk), pizza, other fast food, etc. I'm gonna try out all the most promising recipes for 600+ calorie meals that get posted here, and be much obliged. If you have any other suggestions for clever caloric connivance, do feel free to post them. (Are there small pastries with 500+ cals in them, for example? Or sodas with more than 100 cals every eight ounces? Can butter be injected into a burger with a medical syringe? :D )

[LadyShea]

I got a freezer full of steaks I have to get rid of, wonder how to send frozen foods cross country... :hmm:

Anyway, make sure you put cream sauces on everything, Bernaise, Hollandaise. Learn to make gravy too.

[Dingfod]

"Carbs. Everybody knows that." --Ray Liotta on Letterman when asked how he put on and lost weight for his different roles.

[Ymir's blood]

Peanut butter is rather healthy, as I understand it. It has a high fat content but it's 'good fat.'

[pescifish]

Avocados, too.

[John Carter]

For breakfast, try eggs benedict. It's got one hell of a lot of calories, tasty, and it's fairly simple once you learn how to make hollandaise sauce. Toast an english muffin, seperate it, place canadian bacon and a poached egg on each face, then top with Hollandaise sauce.

It takes a while to get the knack of making Hollandaise, but the ingredients are easily available and cheap. First, you need some clarified butter. To make that, simply melt butter in a small saucepan, and skim off the fat from the top, then strain what's left through cheese cloth. Or you could just pour it off, but be careful not to let the milk solids at the bottom get back into the butter. Hmmm... as far as that goes, since the idea is to gain as many calories as possible, you could just use melted butter instead of clarified butter in this recipe, but it'll be a bit saltier. Sorry, I'm rambling. Anyway, on to the sauce itself:

Place egg yolks into a mixing bowl along with a tablespoon or so of boiling water. Place the mixing bowl over hot (not boiling, but simmering) water and beat the mixture with a whisk until it begins to thicken. Remove from heat, and gradually add the clarified butter while continuing to whisk the eggs. Mix in a dash of lemon juice and and a small pinch of cayenne pepper. Serve immediately; refigeration will ruin it.

Oh, and you really should be eating at least some veggies, and Hollandaise is excellent over broccoli, cauliflower, and other vegetables.

[wildernesse]

Pasta Primavera is a decent yummy fattening food, with the plus of having veggies involved. Not too expensive. I used to make this a lot when I started cooking, so it's not all that hard to do. Then my roommates found out what was in it, and yelled at me for ruining their diets.

This makes 4 servings.
8 oz fettuccine/linguine
1 tbs olive/veggie oil
1 c. broccoli florets
1 c. cauliflowerets
2 medium carrots, thinly sliced
1 c. frozen green peas (rinsed to separate)
1 small onion, chopped
1 tbs. Parmesan cheese

Alfredo sauce
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. heavy cream
3/4 c. grated Parmesan
1/2 tsp. salt
dash of pepper

1. Cook pasta acc'ding to package.
2. Heat oil in 12" skillet over med-high heat. Add veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, onion) and cook for 6-8 minutes, stirring frequently, until veggies are crisp-tender.
3. Prepare Alfredo sauce: Heat butter and cream in saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until butter is melted. Stir in cheese, salt and pepper.
4. Stir sauce into veggies. Drain pasta. Stir pasta into sauce mixture, heat through. Sprinkle with the tbs of Parmesan.

My cookbook says that one serving of this (1 3/4 c.) is 635 calories, w/ 43g of fat, 95 mg of Cholesterol, 910 mg Sodium, 50g Carbs, 6g of fiber, and 18g of protein.

If you add sides, a drink, and dessert, you've got a lovely high calorie meal. Oh, and always eat dessert.

[lisarea]

I used to be on them all the time as a kid, and they usually consisted of replacing milk with heavy cream wherever possible, like in canned tomato and mushroom soup, cereal, etc. And milkshakes. I had to drink, like, x pints of milkshakes every day. Plus, every morning, my mom would make up a batch of chocolate milk that I had to finish. Yick. It was in a blue Tupperware pitcher. I hated that freaking thing.

Oh, and I once had a mandate to gain enough weight so they could take my tonsils out, so I did this thing where I would make sure I was eating constantly all day long, too. I 'lost' if I let my mouth get empty at any given moment during the day. I mostly remember peanuts and crackers. You could do cookies and granola and stuff, too. Actually, granola is already pretty calorie-dense, and could be made even more so with lots of nuts and oil and coconut and such, and less oatmeal. It's pretty easy to make, and endlessly tweakable, so I'm sure we could come up with a super fattening version. You do have to use the oven, but it's not temperamental or anything.

Good old candy bars should work, too. Snickers are probably pretty dense.

I also started drinking beer as part of a weight-gaining mission. I didn't like it at the time, but it was high-calorie and cheap. I think it's around 200 calories a can, but for some reason I thought it was more. I'd probably seen some shock story on the news about how fattening it was or something. I don't know how many calories there are in soda, but I really don't like soda, so it was kind of a substitute, anyway.

I second the recommendation, though, not to stop fruits and vegetables. You could replace some of them with vegetable and fruit juices, though. One of the big reasons they don't recommend that is that they're more calorie dense than whole fruits and vegetables, but that should suit your needs.

So. This is kind of fun.

[lisarea]

Oh, and here are a few links to stuff about diets for bodybuilders and sumo wrestlers.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/dennis1.htm

http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=body_135diet

http://conferencing.cics.bsu.edu/blogs/gemcginley/archives/000355.html

Sumo wrestlers, from what I can see, don't eat breakfast (to slow down their metabolism) then they eat this stuff called chankonabe (http://slate.msn.com/id/2110026/sidebar/2110028/) until they can't move, then they take naps, play video games, watch TV, and stuff like that for the rest of the day.

[Beth]

I recommend pastas with heavy cream sauces, like mentioned. Using lotsa butter and olive oil in the dishes, if you drink coffee, use cream, rather than half and half. Eating heavy desserts. If you look at the calorie content on the packages, you might be amazed to see how many calories are in a slice of some sort of frozen pie.

I'd have to really think on this because I really have not tried to eat many calories in a meal. The easiest way I can think of to consume those calories is to eat at McDonalds or some place similar.

[Beth]

http://www.hdny.org/recipes.html
Baked Chicken Salad

chicken salad4 cups of diced cooked chicken
1 ½ cups cooked rice
1 can cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup
1 cup mayonnaise
4 cups of diced cooked chicken
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup shredded cheese

Mix chicken, rice, soup, mayonnaise, salt and pepper together and place in a shallow baking pan. Top with shredded cheese. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving provides: 794 calories. Approximate Exchanges are: 8 meat, 1 bread, and 5 fat.

Add veggies to this dish and it would be healthier, I also suggest you eating it with liberally buttered bread or garlic bread:

Noodles Alfredo

noodles alfredo8 oz. (about 4 cups) cooked egg noodles
1/2 cup butter
½ cup heavy cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup shredded Swiss cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Cook noodles in boiling water until soft. Drain. In a small sauce pan, melt
butter. Add cream and heat through. Pour over noodles. Add cheeses, salt and pepper. Toss lightly until noodles are coated.

Makes 4 servings. Each serving provides: 671 calories
Approximate Exchanges are: 2 meat, 2 bread, and 9 fat

You could make a salad. Many salads are very high in fat and calories because of cheese and dressing. You could add things like olives and heavily buttered crutons and nuts to the salad for extra fat and calories. Use different kinds of cheeses for flavor.

[livius drusus]

I don't know how versatile it is, but this recipe fits all the other criteria to perfection. :eat:

Broiled Sole Parmesan

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
3 tbslp butter, softened
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tblsp thinly sliced green onions
3 tblsp mayonnaise
1 tsp grated lemon, rind of
1 1/2 lbs sole fillets
2 tblsp lemon juice

Heat broiler. In medium bowl, stir together all ingredients except fish and lemon juice. Place sole fillets on broiler pan; sprinkle with lemon juice. Broil 3-4 inches from heat until fish flakes with a fork (about 3-5 minutes). Spread Parmesan mixture over fillets and broil until bubbly and golden brown (3-5 minutes).

[wildernesse]

I was thinking about the salad option too, especially because I had salad for lunch today and the dressing (Ken's Peppercorn Ranch) had 180 cals, 19 g of fat in 2 tablespoons! I live high on the hog, I tell ya. I could probably eat dressing and croutons all day long by themselves, but including salad from a bag does give me a few tiny bits of vitamins.

So, another way of getting calories and veggies would be to have some high cal dressing to slather them in. Sorry, I know you didn't ask about how to eat more veggies, WinAce, but in case you feel the need to have some vitamin C every once in a while, a thought that you can still have the high cals and veggies.

Oh, also mashed potatoes--they're easy to eat lots of (well, they are one of my absolutely favoritest foods so *I* could at least eat lots of them) and if you do it right, then you'll have both lots of carbs and lots of fat. Plus, they can bump up an otherwise lighter meal. Easy to make if you have a mixer of some sort or a potato masher--but in a pinch you could probably make do with a large spoon.

Cookbook ingredients for 4-6 servings:
2 lbs/6 med taters
1/3-1/2 c. milk
1/4 c. butter
salt and pepper

With these ingredients, they end up with 270 cal per serving and 12g of fat. 38 g of Carb. I don't think I've ever eaten one serving of mashed potatoes.

Of course, to have really good mashed taters, you can add/substitute cream and maybe a 1/2 c. of Parmesan, which will probably bump that cal per serving a nice bit.

Boil water and taters ~ 20 minutes, until tender. Drain. Mash up. Add milk/cream to make fluffy--just judge what looks/tastes good to you. Add butter (and cheese) and salt and pepper. Mix/mash until things look combined/melted.

You people with your cooked mayo recipes are weirding me out.

[Dingfod]

For fast food: Hardee's 1420 Calorie Monster burger. (http://graphics.fansonly.com/schools/ncst/graphics/hardees-thickburger-200x151.jpg) Can't get much more easy to prepare than that, or high calorie.

[wildernesse]

Ok. I'm on a mission now. Plus, I just finished my NOTE (blarg), so having free time is wonderful! These are recipes from the Everyday Living mag, so they tend not to be overwhelming skill-wise or ingredient-wise.

Baked Ravioli (http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=recipe3958&layout=edf&edfParentCat=cat17924&subStyleType=recipes&catid=cat17924)
This recipe is for 4-6 servings--but you could reduce the recipe easily, especially if you buy frozen ravioli and forget the can of whole tomatoes. Based on dividing it into sixths, there are 647 cal, 26 g. fat, 30.7 g. protein, 73.2 g. carbs, 6 g. fiber. (I have a subscription, so I can look up the nutrition info in the mag--it's not listed on the link.)

Beef Fajitas (http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=recipe3885&layout=edf&edfParentCat=cat17924&subStyleType=recipes&catid=cat17924)

655 cal, 30.2 fat, 41.5 protein, 50.3 carb, 4.2 fiber I'm sure this means that the sour cream isn't really optional.

After looking through recipes that aren't quite hitting the 600 mark, I will say: go buy cheese. Eat a lot of cheese. I am now afraid of cheese. I know that the common occurrence of Parmesan in this thread should have clued me in (because I apparently don't have any common sense), but really. Have some cheese at every meal.

[Lauri D]

In a word...

CHEESE.

CHEESE CHEESE CHEESE.

There are so many kinds, and you can do sooo much with them - quesadillas, on crackers, grilled-cheese sammiches, or just plain (my personal favorite).

*edited to add: I swear I wasn't copying ya, wildy :blush: Everyone knows I'm a diehard proponent of the god that shall be known as Cheese... :blush:

:tiptoe:

[RevDahlia]

If I had to gain a lot of weight, I would put myself on a strict diet consisting of nothing but gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce. Here is a recipe, (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/105060) though I disagree with the microwave procedure. Just boil the potatoes, it's not that hard.

Gnocchi are time-consuming and kinda messy to make, but once you get the hang of it they're cost-effective. You can get gnocchi in restaurants, of course, but that requires lots of money.

[livius drusus]

I've found some halfway decent prepackaged gnocchi on occasion. I can't remember the brand name though.

[LadyShea]

Gnocchi are time-consuming and kinda messy to make, but once you get the hang of it they're cost-effective. You can get gnocchi in restaurants, of course, but that requires lots of money.

Basically a potato dumpling isn't it? Could you just make the dough into balls instead of the rolling/cutting to make it a bit quicker and easier?

I love all kinds of dumplings, and definitely want to try this, I just like to make things easier.

[pescifish]

WinAce, my aunt used to pound down those cans of Ensure when she was commanded to gain weight. She said they tasted like milkshakes but they have a more balanced nutrient content.

I could see how trying to power down food could get old really really fast -- and I love to eat! Good luck!

[livius drusus]

Basically a potato dumpling isn't it? Could you just make the dough into balls instead of the rolling/cutting to make it a bit quicker and easier?

I don't think that would work, but I'm not exactly sure why. Possibly a textural thing, possibly an evenness of weight thing. The bane of gnocchi is when they turn out really heavy. I think making them into compressed balls would walk into that trap.

Here's (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=31097#post31097) my recipe, btw.

[Ymir's blood]

I believe that Eldar's mayo diet plan would help.

:popcorn:

[Beth]

I believe that Eldar's mayo diet plan would help.

:popcorn:Ok, I will fess up. I instantly adored liv when I heard about her mayo avoidance. I too think it is an abomination. I would not eat the stuff in tuna salad as a kid, I learned how to make a more mustard than mayo potato salad so that the mustard hid that disgusting mayo taste. So reading this makes me feel :yuck::puke:


:P

[livius drusus]

Yay! Another mayo hater! Come to my arms, Beth. :glomp: