A few years ago when I had my fourth baby boy, my friend, Lesli, brought me dinner. When she walked in my first thought was, “Who else is she taking dinner to tonight?” She had an armful of food and goodies. When it was all unloaded, I realized it was all for me and my family. I can’t tell you what a blessing it was that night (and days after as we used the things she brought). Since then, I’ve taken Lesli’s example and used it for when I need to take dinner to a new mother. This idea could be extrapolated to any type of situation that requires a meal being brought to a person or family in need.
Enter the New Momma Take-In Tray. What you see here is what I always include on my list to take to a new mother. I thought I’d share the information since I know many of you are bustling around taking dinner to friends and neighbors and family, too.
Let’s break it down, shall we?
1. Main Dish: In this case it was Baked Penne with Chicken, Broccoli and Smoked Mozz. Here is a category filled with other great ideas for take-in meals.
2. Side #1: I usually like to include a bread of sorts, since you never know how other people’s kids eat (assuming the new mother has other children at home besides the new babe). In the event these so-called children want to gag at the thought of what the main dish is (perhaps the parents are gagging too), a bread is sure to fill up their bellies. Pictured here is my favorite french bread recipe, this time made with 100% whole wheat flour and 1 cup of ground flax meal in place of the all-purpose flour. Other great ideas for a bread are cornbread, rolls, breadsticks, etc.
3. Side #2: Usually I keep this pretty boring. In this case, it was a salad with homemade croutons and a tupperware of dressing from my fridge. Other times it is just a bag of frozen peas, broccoli, fresh cut up veggies, something like that.
4. Dessert: What we’ve got here is a simple stack of chocolate chip cookies tied up with a pipe cleaner because I’m classy like that. Cookies or brownies make a great take-in dessert, mostly because I usually have them in my freezer already baked and ready to go so it means I don’t have to fuss about it while assembling the other parts of dinner.
5. Oatmeal Pancake Mix: I like to throw a bag of my go-to whole wheat oatmeal pancake mix on the tray for the family to enjoy later (maybe even for another dinner!).
6. Buttermilk: Because not everyone has buttermilk on hand for the aforementioned pancake mix, I’ll usually add a small carton of buttermilk to the tray to make life easier.
7. Playdough: If the new mom has other children at home besides the new baby, I always whip up some of this homemade playdough. I can’t tell you what a great diversion playdough is for my kids – worth every minute it takes to sweep up the mess. Hopefully the moms aren’t cursing me for this addition…I should pin a coupon on it to say I’ll come clean up the mess after their kids get done playing with it.
8. Paper Plates/Utensils: To minimize work for the new mom, I always try to include paper plates, napkins and utensils. And I try to give everything to the family in disposable type containers that they don’t need to worry about returning to me. As if they don’t have enough things to worry about with a new baby, right?
I hope this list will help you as you prepare to take dinner into someone near you.
As for me, now I’ve just got to work on convincing my friends here to have more babies so I can put a tray together for them. And seriously, while I’m at it, I should probably look into getting some real hobbies.
Someone brought us dinner after my fourth and she added a small salad bar. She took one of those disposable baking pans for a cake/lasagna. Filled 1/2 with salad/lettace mix. The other 1/2 had disposable cups filled with things like cheese, chinese noodles, raisins, tomatoes, goldfish, croutons etc. and some dressing. My kids loved it!! It didn’t really take that much effort since most of it was open and pour. It was fun and made the complaints at dinner much less!
Great idea to be so considerate of the whole family!
I once read a book about southern cooking and culture. One of the meals that got delivered in this small town was for a grieving widow or widower. Well, in the old timey days, they did not have zip locks or glad containers; but there was some wisdom in giving a covered dish in an actual dish. When the initial grieving period is done, the return of the dish created a situation where the widow(er) had to have some small human contact in the form of returning the casserole dish to the people who did the cooking.
I understand a new mama is not grieving and may not have time for returning dishes, but I like the idea of a social visit built into the returning of a dish.
WOW! this is awesome! I will definitely be sharing this with the sisters in my ward
Something to remember- lots of women can not have chocolate when nursing. Other common foods women have to avoid when nursing are dairy, processed food (especially meat), and spicy food.
Great dinner ideas are foods filled with fiber. Anyone who has had an epidural and pain meds knows that fiber is a need.
What a great list! Thanks for sharing.
When you make the pancake mix for this particular reason, do you still add the oil to the mix?
Thanks for your response! Since it has oil, should it be refrigerated? Or is it shelf-stable?
I;m just seeing this post. Don’t know how I missed it! Great idea – we just had a baby not too long ago and I would have loved getting one of these!!