One of the things I’ve been thinking about as I get closer to having this baby is food.
I want a lot of homemade food around after I give birth, but I also know I’m going to be recovering, taking care of a newborn, and probably running on very little sleep. So I’m trying to plan ahead and make as many freezer meals as realistically possible.
A lot of what I’m planning to make is inspired by la cuarentena, the traditional postpartum period of rest and recovery. The idea is to focus on warm, nutrient-dense, comforting, and easily digestible foods that can help nourish you while your body is recovering.
So the majority of the meals I’m considering fall into that category: chicken and rice casserole, meatball soup, caldo de pollo—which, growing up, my siblings and I called caveman soup—lentil soup, butternut squash soup, and beef stew.
Then there are the meals that are here because it’s going to be fall and I simply want them: pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and sage, chicken pot pie, and French-style baked leek and zucchini served with baked chicken.
Because apparently my postpartum meal plan needs to include both traditional wisdom and me saying, “But what if we had pumpkin ravioli?”
My friend also offered to make me three meals, which I am absolutely taking her up on. I’m asking for her lasagna, chicken nuggets, and pork shoulder.
Are chicken nuggets necessarily the most nutritious postpartum meal? No.
Will they probably save Hector and me when we inevitably reach soup fatigue? Absolutely.
Because as much as I love soup, I know there is going to be a point where the last thing either of us wants to see is another bowl of broth.
I also have to be realistic about freezer space. I have no idea how much room we’re actually going to have in his parents fridge and freezer, so I’m not planning to make everything I just listed. This is more of a collection of ideas I’d like to choose from rather than a challenge to somehow prepare nine freezer meals while heavily pregnant.
Whatever I do end up making, I’ll either create a recipe for it or share the recipe I used, assuming I haven’t already shared one here. So hopefully this turns into a little postpartum recipe collection along the way.
For now, I’ll wait until I’m in California and go from there. But I should also figure out how much food I can reasonably fit in a freezer without accidentally meal-prepping myself into another full-time job.
And, apparently, I need to leave room for chicken nuggets.
