In my last post Book clubbin’ with the girls! I mentioned that more than half of my book club was expecting. Now, a month later, all 4 of those girls have given birth! So, over the past few weeks my friends and I have been setting up meal registries for the new moms and making dinners for their families.
Sample Meal Train from Peas and Thank You
Making dinners for families in the event of a new baby is not a new idea. However, these days it’s much easier too coordinate who brings what and when with the help of the internet. My friends and I are using Meal Train, but there are other sites, like Meal Baby, that offer the same service. Both are free to join and use.
Of course, we all remember how all-consuming having a newborn can be. Add the stream of visitors and who has time to cook? It’s such a blessing to have something homemade that you can just pop in the oven or microwave!
With sites like Meal Train you can post information about how many people to cook for, dietary preferences, a drop-off time and address and any other special instructions. That way contributors will know if the grandparents will be visiting and if someone in the family has an allergy or aversion to something.
Dropping off your meal to the family also gives you the opportunity to set up an “appointment” to visit that new baby!
You may decide to bring other goodies along with the meal. When my son was born a friend brought us a reusable shopping bag full of snacks like Gardetto’s, M&M’s, bananas, and apple sauce, along with other fun stuff like gum and chap stick. The bag was packed full and I thought it was just the most awesome gift! I’ve been bringing my friends muffins. For fun, I thought I’d post the recipe for the Strawberry Surprise Muffins I made for my friend Karen.
Strawberry Surprise Muffins
Adapted from Perfectly Simple Muffins
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
strawberry jam
Streusel Topping
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp flour
2 tbsp butter
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix ingredients until well blended. Fill greased or lined muffin pans 1/3 full. Add 1 teaspoon of jam and then fill pans with more batter so that they are 2/3 full.
Mix ingredients for streusel topping. Sprinkle on top of muffins and bake for 15-20 minutes.
