Meals to prepare before the baby arrives

[beansbananas]

I'm aware that lots of mum's to be fill the freezer with meals you can heat up once the baby arrives. I'm starting to think about what to make and was hoping for some advice and meal recommendations. This is my first baby, so not sure what my appetite will be like and what will make the easiest, healthiest meals for me when breast feeding, which my husband will also enjoy! Also I'm not one to freeze food very often... But i usually defrost before I heat up when I do. Are there any meals you can make and cook from frozen? Just anticipating I might not always remember to think ahead and defrost, when I'm exhausted! All tips welcome! Thanks.

I've just made a big batch of mixed veg and cheese savoury muffins, they are meant to freeze well. I think they'd be a good eat quickly and one handed when you are in a rush type food and healthier than and healthier than a load of biscuits (which is what I mainly survived on in the early days)

BBC Good Food has a link on freezer-friendly meals for parents-to-be, you might see a recipe or two there you like?

I'm due with my first 2 weeks today (EEK!) I've cooked chicken curry, spag bol, chilli con carne, and pork meatballs. Just need to add my carb of choice when defrosting.

Really didn't fancy doing too much and thoroughly recommend doing a trip to Costco. They do 6 servings of Cottage Pie, lasagne, and fish pie all £10 each. Got some frozen food to fill the freezer too which works out cheaper than supermarket and much better quality too.

I use Jamie Oliver shepherds pie recipe. It is yum and fail proof. I sometimes bulk it out a bit with more veg than the recipe. I bought a huge pack of foil trays that make perfect individual pie portions so I just chuck it in the oven and still the lovely crispy layer on top.

www.jamieshomecookingskills.com/recipe.php?title=shepherd-s-pie

I'm 39 weeks now, and have been batch cooking like crazy. I've made: lasagnes, chilli, spaghetti sauce, fish pies, and chicken and white wine casserole.

We've also bought a slow cooker do I can just throw stuff in and leave it to do its thing.

The pre-prep'd panini idea is great!

Definitely do food that you can eat one handed.

Think about when your hubby/partner won't be around for me evening meals weren't as much of an issue as lunch and snacks so healthy muffins & wraps/sandwiches not sure how you'd freeze them. My hubby used to make me a sandwich in the evening for the next day (when he remembered).

Believe me when I say I have never known hunger like when I'm breastfeeding so quick healthy snacks are a must.

savoury muffins as someone's suggested are great and freeze well - defrost with short (!) burst in the microwave. My favourite are from the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook - cheese & spinach.

The Banana ones are good too, but need a bit of doctoring (added nuts, more spices etc) IMO :) Also freeze/defrost very well.

www.cookfood.net/

I have a month-old baby. You need this in your life.

Also, if you don't have a huge amount of freezer space (which I didn't), if anyone says "can I bring anything?" when they're coming to visit, say "dinner!" You'll find that anyone with children may well anyway.

My best friend whose eldest is 9mos older than mine bought loads of foil container filled two portion meals. I wept many a hormonal tear of love into them :)

I've paid that one forward a lot.

I made some freezer meals but most of them are still in the freezer (my DS is 3 months). I found that, instead, I preferred to have picnicy type things for lunch (quiches, salads, hummous, cheese, nice bread) and quick cook things for dinner (stir fry, filled pasta, etc). It helps that my DH is a perfectly decent cook so he did a lot of the cooking in the first few weeks.

You mentioned that your DP doesn't cook - I would recommend trying to change that before the baby arrives. You'll get quite frustrated if he can't even whip up a simple meals and, to be honest, being able to make at least a couple of simple dishes is a basic life skill.

One of my friends has a DH who "just doesn't cook" and recently had a baby - she really didn't care about doing all the cooking beforehand but she does now!

I found cooking and freezing a load of rice really helpful. I despise the taste of the pre-cooked rice packets like uncle bens so I made my own to go with the chilli and curry dishes I made as well. Just cook the rice as normal, when cooked just empty into a roasting dish to cool (I find this helps it cool faster) and then spoon into the big sized ziplock bags. When reheating just put in microwave for 2 minutes or so.

My other favourite was making and freezing individual portions of oatmeal mixed with nuts, raisins, and dried apricots. All you have to do is microwave and stir in some brown sugar, honey, or syrup (whichever you prefer!) Oats are meant to be fantastic for milk production while breast feeding and I found that by eating this in the morning besides toast I felt fuller longer. It also made the long morning cluster feeds more bearable because I didn't get as ravenous half way through.

I also did an english muffin egg sandwich thing (like the McDonalds type but better). Just whip up some eggs, a splash of milk and some cheese. You can then add anything else you want, onion, peppers, bacon pieces, spinach etc. dish out into a muffin tin and bake at gas mark 6 (or whatever that is in celsius) until cooked through. Then place on English muffins, wrap up and freeze. These can be re heated in the microwave and eaten easily with one hand.

And if you use takeaway containers to freeze your lasange/ pies, you've no washing up!

We did some batch cooking but I remember being so exhausted in the second week when DH went back to work that I lived on the cake a friend made for breakfast and lunch for 3 days :D

"You mentioned that your DP doesn't cook - I would recommend trying to change that before the baby arrives. You'll get quite frustrated if he can't even whip up a simple meals and, to be honest, being able to make at least a couple of simple dishes is a basic life skill."

This ^^

One thing to bear in mind though is if you are breast feeding you may find that if you eat a lot of windy foods it may make your baby more colicky.

It doesn't happen with everyone, but my sister found out the hard way and so did I. I had a pizza with peppers on it when DD was about a week old and that night DD wouldn't go to sleep until 4 am. So, by all means make curries and chilli, but you might want to make other less windy foods as well.

Tumilnaughts How do you do the eggs please? Scrambled, etc?

loads of snacks, I got really hungry in the middle of the night

Second the less windy foods. I was going all out on my beans and lentils. The agigitated baby and explosive poos! The mega explosive poops that if baby was nappyless would literally find there way to the other end of the bed (if I was changing on the bed)!