Food for new parents

[Waitforit]

Friends of mine and dp have just had their first baby. We will probably pop around sometime next week to say a quick hello. I'd like to make a couple of meals to take with us (particularly as it was a difficult birth and i know that she isn't too well at the moment), so I'm looking for suggestions. I'm a decent cook but am quite short of time this week so need something that is quick (or at least that involves minimal prep time). All suggestions gratefully received!

[piprabbit]

Food that can reheated in a microwave and shovelled in to her mouth with one hand. Curry; stews; pasta sauces etc.

[shopafrolic]

That's really lovely! When I gave birth one of my friends bought round a huge lasagne - we could reheat it in the microwave and then freeze the additional portions - it gave us about 3 meals and was a godsend. Chilli would also be good (although not too much chilli powder if BF!).

[Waitforit]

Good tip on the one handed business! Like the idea of curry - stupid question but does spicy food affect breast milk (don't have dc myself so have no idea!)

[piprabbit]

Spicy food does affect breast milk, it's probably less of an issue if your friend ate spicy food during her pregnancy (as it also affects the amniotic fluid apparently, so baby would be more used to it).

[shopafrolic]

I wouldn't personally recommend curry as when I was BF i ate a thai green (quite mild) curry and my DS was very uncomfortable! I did eat curry during pregnancy and it didn't seem to make a difference unfortunately. Might be safer to ease of the spices! Agree re: one handed shovelling though!

[MummyElk]

Lasagne excellent but if I'm cooking for new mums I use normal pasta like fusili that can be speared on a fork - ie, eaten with one hand. Nigella does a sort of similar version - basically mix it all up a bit and bung it in the dish.
The other thing that's quite a nice tip if you've got to go to supermarket anyway is to buy a foil takeaway dish to serve it to them. You can get quite big ones. That way you can write instructions on the cardboard lid, they can freeze if inundated, and they don't have to worry their sleep-addled brains about whose dish is whose. They can bin the empty dish and not worry about washing up.
Cottage pie also good for forkability.
I once also did stroganoff which was a big hit except it cost me a fortune....but it was scrummy and we ate some too