One of the practical ways to help a family with a new baby is providing a meal. It can be easy to get stuck in a rut when making meals for other families so some inspiration is good!
This question was suggested by a reader and I thought it would be fun to put our heads together and come up with a list of ideas. To get you thinking, here are some questions to consider.
- What is your favorite meal to give to a family with a new baby?
- What was your favorite meal you received when you had a baby?
- Did you get way too many of the same kinds of meals when you were on the receiving end?
- Do you have any tips or tricks for carrying in a meal to a family you might not know well?
Funny stories are also welcome!
(This post is several years old as you will see from the comment dates below. But the comments are filled with good ideas so I’m reposting it and bumping it up to the top. I encourage you to add some more to help us all out as we participate in this form of hospitality.)
Our Cozy Home No. 3
I’m sure it’s not a new idea, but usually either chicken divan or lasagne. Salad. Some sort of dessert. Probably some other vegetable or homemade rolls or both.
Chicken enchiladas and all the trimmings and dessert. These are always well-received.
Oh, and they were my favorite to receive after we had baby #4 this past January. We had gotten a lot of Italian dishes in the days before (spaghetti, ziti, and lasagna within three days) so enchiladas were a welcome change (though ALL dishes were appreciated!). After that, I vowed to never take Italian again. 😉
We have given so many meals out over the years that we have now have a long list of easy, with planning, meals. I don’t know which one is thet! All our ‘meals’ are things you can make ahead – using the crock pot, pre cook the night before or assemble quickly and take. However, here are a few that have been our ‘oldies but goodies’.
Chicken & rice/Green Beans/Desert (you can make the chicken & rice in a crockpot)
Baked Ravioli/garlic bread/Desert (brownies/cookies)
Grilled Chicken/Grilled zucchini, squash,onions/bread/Desert
Roasted Pork Tenderloin w/glaze/taters (in the same baking dish)/Baked Peas
Grilled Pork Chops/saffron rice/desert
Roasted or rotisserie Chicken w/dressing/can of cranberry sauce/green beans
Hungarian Goulash (need I say more?)
Pot Roast & fixings (crock pot)
We have other easy things that we roast the morning before, bake while at work, partially cook the night before (like the ravioli, or grilled items) or the crock pot (which is our favorite). We also try to use meals that are not the staples of most people, let’s be real – a new Mom & Dad need something special!!!!!! 😉
Lastly, we keep our freezer stocked with a variety of baked breads along with roasted or grilled veggies & chicken that are in air-tight packaging. If someone needs something quickly, we just pull it out, defrost and wrap up and deliver.
Our church has a pretty neat plan for members who have babies, death or serious illness, etc. There is a member board outside our sanctuary that has sign up lists (with dates, etc.) when a situation develops. The posting also has directions/phone number of the family you can take with you. It’s a great program!
Ye gads, why didn’t I spell check that one????/ 😀
Pork Tenderloin, Twice-baked potatoes, Green salad, Fresh bread
I always take some type of dessert – cookies if family has other children and small coffee cake if they don’t – and one of the following:
pot roast and trimmings (potatoes, carrots, onions, gravy), a salad
lasagna with salad and bread
tortilla soup and salad
I also take either an egg casserole or french toast casserole for breakfast the next day
I’m not a very good cook, so I always take spaghetti casserole, salad and bread. The casserole is simply cooked spaghetti noodles, a jar of Prego and cooked ground beef mixed together and in a baking pan covered with grated montery jack cheese and baked until cheese is melted. It’s even better the second day, so it’s a good make-ahead meal. I buy the salad in a bag and french bread from the grocery store.
Gift certificates for delivery or takeout.
It’s not “home cooked”, but the meal can be eaten when it’s convenient for the family. It gives a lot more flexibility.
I always give a pasta dish, we got a lot of chicken with our second, and it was almost all dry and not very tasty (although we did eat it and were grateful not to cook.)
I make my meatballs with cream cheese and oats, bake at 425 for 20 to 25 minutes, they’re really yummy and always well received. If they like onions and don’t have small children, I add in a package of lipton soup mix and pepper to the meatballs.
We got a shepherd’s pie with our first, I don’t normally like that dish, but it had really yummy gravy and was a nice change from our normal fare.
The one chicken dish I really liked, I just got the recipe for yesterday (3 years after asking for it!):
Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole
2 (6.2 oz) pkg fast cooking long grain and wild rice mix
1/4 c. butter
2 med onions, chopped
4 celery ribs, chopped
2 (8 oz) cans sliced water chestnuts, drained
5 c. chopped cooked chicken
4 c. (16 oz) shredded cheddar cheese
2 (10 3/4 oz) cans cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 (16 oz) container sour cream
1 c. milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 c. soft breadcrumbs
Prepare rice according to directions, set aside. melt butter in lg. skillet, med. heat. Add onions, celery, and water chestnuts. Saute 10 min, until tender. Stir in rice, chicken, 3 c. cheese, soup and next 4 ingred. Spoon mix into lightly greased 15 X 10 dish or 4 qt. casserole. Top evenly with breadcrumbs Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining 1 c. cheese. Bake 5 minutes.
I keep the meatballs in the freezer, they freeze really well. They keep for 1 to 2 months in a regular ziplock, 6 months to a year if you have a food saver (we got one about 6 months ago an have really enjoyed having one.)
With the meatballs in the freezer, it’s really quick to make the rest of the dish. If you get the meatballs out in the morning or the night before, they’re defrosted enough by dinner time to cook in the pasta.
I also keep frozen homemade chocolate chip cookies on hand. They get too squished in the food saver, but I always find someone to give them too before they go bad.
My standard dish is Chicken Pot Pie since it’s pretty safe for nursing mothers to eat. I usually make cookies for dessert.
These are all such good ideas. I make meals often and always want to shake up my routine a bit. 🙂
My standard is Poppyseed Chicken, a yummy salad, rolls and ice cream. I usually like to bring “splurge” ice cream, the small Ben and Jerry’s really outrageous flavors, for mom to savor after an evening nursing session. I also do the ice cream because I’ve been dieting and if I make cookies or brownies, I tend to eat some myself. 🙂
Happy New Year, all!
For me it really depends on the family.
The best meal WE ever received after a baby was a roast with carrots and potatoes. My husband was never so thrilled over a brought in supper. Sometimes I wonder if that was his reason for having more children.
By the time the third one came around, someone brought us mac and cheese with hotdogs cut up in it. It was given in such love, and my two little ones were thrilled to receive a meal that looked familar to them.
I have a friend who heads up meals at her church. They send out a request when the church freezer is low, and the women of the church fill it up again. If by chance the meals don’t move in the right amount of time, they serve them at potlucks. I think that is brilliant.
We always do a “fancy” dinner for the new parents. My husband grills steak and/or chicken, I make twice baked potatoes, salad and something yummy for dessert. We have had many people say it’s their favorite meal because it isn’t the “typical” casserole meal.
When I had my two babies a few of the most memorable meals were: game hens and rice, meat loaf, lasagna and chinese take out.
I like to make baked beef stew, corn bread and applesauce, but I try to (when possible) ask what would be enjoyed because I do not want to bring something that the family has had a lot or do not like. I typically do not bring dessert because most others do and sometimes (talking from experience) you can get too many sweets. We had several ice cream desserts leftover in the freezer, platefuls of cookies, brownies, etc. I love dessert but my husband and I don’t eat it much and having so many sweets in the house made eating well and losing pregnancy pounds difficult.
The best meal we received was boeuf bourguignon (a very hearty beef stew, with bacon in it). It was WONDERFUL to have our friends bring us this after our hospital ordeal, when we had both been running on practically no sleep and living on pathetic odds and ends of food for days. Our church didn’t start bringing us meals until we were all back home again. I was anemic from the birth and was really craving meat.
Before this next baby comes, I hope to fill up the freezer with this stew (we got the recipe from them afterward). If I have to transfer from home birth to hospital, I am going to take some in with me! I have learned that the hospital meal service cannot be relied upon–they forgot to give me supper my first night postpartum, and I am still having a really hard time forgiving that two years later. The nurse brought me a peanut butter sandwich and an apple, but it was nowhere near enough.
So, to answer the question, something with RED MEAT. And consider starting the meals before the baby even comes home.
Oh, these all sound SO GOOD! Here is what I loved: Chicken and rice, green beans and a Waldorf salad. I ate that salad for about 3 days. It was so good. But I usually take a pesto pasta with grilled chicken and a dessert, but never brownies. We got about 4 pans of brownies after my daughter was born so I swore them off. We also had a run of lasagna from our son’s birth so I don’t make that one either. The gal that had the idea about the french toast casserole for breakfast the next morning…you are BRILLIANT! Could you post that one for us? I’d make that for a new family as well.
When we got home, we got lots of tomato based pasta dishes. I was thankful, but by the third lasagna, it was sometimes hard to stomach! 🙂
Our favorites that people brought was a taco salad that had Catalina dressing and chips crunched up in it (I had never had it that way, but it’s my favorite now!), a platter for lunch with yummy roll-up sandwiches and fritos (the salt tasted so good to me!), and a surprise pizza delivery! 🙂
My favorite meals to take are soups, bread, and dessert in the winter and a large meal type salad (taco or oriental chicken usually) in the summer. If they already have young kids at home, a lot of times I will take sloppy joes and chips and fruit. If I have enough time, I also like to make a batch of muffins and / or egg casserole to include with the dinner.
There are some great suggestions here! I will have to take notes! 🙂
A funny is that my sister-in-law got many varieties of chicken and rice….so that must be popular. My go to meal now (disabled) is a meat/cheese tray with sandwich bread. It lasts a long time and can be shared with visitors. When I was mobile I often did Spaghetti with Meat sauce, garlic bread, salad and brownies.
These are all great ideas. I’ll add that I also like to bring snack/breakfast items ie: quick bread, frozen homemade waffles, cut up fruit and veggies, hummus. Items that are easy to snack on while breastfeeding. It might just be me but when we had our son, I liked it when people stayed and held him while my husband and I ate. Our son wanted to be held all of the time so we always ate in shifts. It was nice to sit down and have a few moments with my husband in those early days.