Any ideas on soft foods for elderly mom to eat besides the usual mashed potatoes, applesauce, ice cream?

Once you start to think about it there are lots of foods that are ordinarily soft

squash and rutabaga are often served mashed
polenta with your favourite pasta sauce
serve those mashed potatoes cold as potato salad
refried beans
hummus
almost any soup can be whizzed with a stick blender and seems like normal food
custards, both sweet and savoury
pumpkin pie (without the crust)
rice or tapioca pudding (cooked very soft or pureed if needed)
yogurt
oatmeal or cream of wheat with lots of brown sugar and a pat of butter
those little cups of applesauce come in lots of different fruit combinations

Deviled eggs or egg salad, my mom loves both, so easy and something different

I used to make all sorts of soups for my Husband.
I would make them a bit thicker with added veggies like carrots, sweet potato rather than flour, pasta or rice.
I would process them as much as I needed to. I would portion them into 2 cup Mason or Ball jars and pop them in the freezer.
A few of the soups I made were:
Loaded Baked Potato soup, Split Pea with ham, Stuffed pepper or a stuffed cabbage soup, Beef Barley, Tomato soup (I would roast pounds and pounds of tomatoes if I happened to see them at the close out corner of the store)

One of the other things that I made for him and he loved...he had always been a pizza guy would eat it anytime he could. I made the Cauliflower Pizza crust, pre baked all the toppings and he could eat that with no problem, later I did process it and while it did not look like pizza it did taste good.

Grits or cream of wheat with an egg cooked on top of it. I started adding the egg for an extra protein boost.

I also switched his dinner and breakfast. He was more alert in the morning and I started giving him his largest meal then so breakfast was often the soup or the girts with egg, lunch might be scrambled eggs or yogurt with fruit and dinner again yogurt or cream of wheat.

I would also make pudding, custard. He loved Key Lime pie so I would make the filling and pour it into little ramekins and bake that. I would get about 5 or 6 and he would have that mid afternoon sometimes.

As far as appetizing goes what you puree may not look great but the flavor is there. When I was a kid we took care of my Grandma and my Dad would process our dinner and put it on a plate for her just like our meal, a mound of beef or whatever (he would use the gravy to thin meats so that it could process), a spoon full of the veggie, a scoop of potato or whatever else there was. She was able to eat and identify what she was eating. Far different than tossing everything into the blender and having one pureed mixture on the plate.

CountryGal, you've received excellent suggestions, including those that touch on dysphagia.    But there's a valuable medical step that probably should be taken first.     Since you haven't mentioned it, I'm assume it hasn't been taken.   I apologize if you already have this information, though.

I assume that a medical person advised you to prepare soft foods?  If so, was a suggestion made for a videoscopic swallowing test?    In my experience, this is done routinely when someone has difficulty swallowing, in order to determine what the cause is, and prescribe the appropriate diet.

It's not an invasive procedure, but needs to be conducted by a speech pathologist, using hospital or lab equipment.    The patient is given various foods of various consistency, all of which are monitored remotely through a machine which allows the pathologist to determine which might be swallowed and which might be aspirated.   

A modified diet is then prescribed; there are different levels.  As someone wrote, there are mechanical soft and pureed categories.  I received several page printouts with very specific guidelines on what can and can't be eaten.  And it's quite surprising; foods that would seem to be appropriate aren't. 

The diet will also address whether liquids need to be thickened; this is important, as in some cases straws cannot be used, and water or other fluids absolutely need to be thickened to avoid aspiration.

Ice cream is a good example; b/c it's soft, it would seem to fit into a dysphagia diet.  Not so with all pureed foods.  It melts too quickly, becomes liquid, and can be aspirated.

I tricked it by giving my father a few teaspoonfuls of ice cream at a time so he could eat it when it still had some solidity.  As soon as it melted, it was ver boten.   And obviously, any ice cream should not contain nuts, chocolate chunks, cherries, or other foods that require chewing.

And you're right; it's not very appetizing.    I did some research, called food companies, and ordered brochures, some of which used techniques to present the food in a more appealing fashion.     Still, my father wasn't particularly excited by pureed foods.

Here are some suggestions: Bread pudding, turkey meatloaf, eggs,
omelets, casseroles, bananas, avocados, cottage cheese, smoothies, homemade cream of tomato soup, shepherd's pie, mashed sweet potatoes. Salmon pie without crust Look online for some recipes with these ingredients. Make sure water intake is good to prevent dehydration on a soft diet. Hope you find some good recipes for your mom.

Countrygal, there are many resources online if you google "pureed food for seniors+recipes". Will you be making the food or someone else? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUTOY-MQzU0

Puddings and jellos and squashes and soups with breads in them. Custards, and shakes and thick smoothies. And as the CountryGal says, almost anything can be made into puree, even my infamous Buffalo Hot Wing Pasta Sauce and noodles.

I make my 90 year old mom, chicken soup, and different beans. I add proteins (steak, pork etc) then purée them. I meal prep once a week for her, portion out lunch and dinner for the week. They are delicious, I add lots of produce to give her a balanced hearty meal. That’s how I got her to eat again.

Not everyone has the time, ability or inclination to prepare a modified diet 3 times a day forever, when you are dealing with the other challenges of full time caregiving it can often seem like one chore too many. We were fortunate that our meals on wheels provided frozen meals with several modified options that I was able to pull out on days when cooking seemed too much to ask, pricey but worth it. Some people will tell you that supplements like ensure and mass produced foods from companies like Hormel are horrible dietary choices but by this stage healthy diets are less important than calories, don't be afraid to rely on any convenience foods she finds palatable.

Momsmeals.com has a great selection of pureed meals, also Hormel health labs