{Planning for Postpartum Series} Ready Made Meals Help Make Dinner A Little Easier for New Parents
We’re continuing our series on Planning for Postpartum and ways in which New Parents can nourish their own bodies as they recover from birth, and care for their newborns at the same time.
This week, we’re exploring the idea of doing more by actually doing less. Ready Made Meals make life easy (well, easier) for new parents by saving time, and precious energy, while helping them fill up on nutritious, home-cooked meals. As it turns out, it also saves time and energy for busy doulas and their families, but that’s another blog post for another day.
Here’s a News Flash: Family dinners don’t always have to be prepared by your family. Enter: The World of Ready Made Meals.
Here in the Triangle, there are quite a few options for “prepared meal kits” that are both pretty good quality meals *and* reasonable in cost. Over the years, our past clients have tried nearly all of them.
Some of their (and our) local favorites include:
The Root Cellar: Based in Chapel Hill, this restaurant offers meat and vegetarian options, as well as a Paleo/Gluten Free meal bundle. Their Family Dinners are priced between $100-$125 for a 2-person portion, and $200 -$250 for a 4-person portion and include 5 main entrees, salad and dessert, with the option to add in servings of bread. These are generous portions too, and often a serving will be enough for a dinner and a lunch the next day!
Foster’s Market: Very similar to The Root Cellar’s offerings, but located in Durham. Their Family Dinner packs also offer a vegetarian and meat-inclusive option, and start at $125. Two really great notes about Foster’s Market dinners: 1) Their labeling game is very strong. It’s easy to see which meals contain nuts, gluten, and dairy. 2) You can add in additional vegetable sides and extra meals for children (hello, big siblings!).
One other really important note about meals from both The Root Cellar and Foster’s Market is that the entrees all come packaged so parents can easily pop them directly into the oven from the fridge, or put them in the freezer for later!Durham Catering Company: This is an option which has pretty yummy, seasonal and locally-sourced ingredient meals for both vegetarian and meat eaters. Their offerings include three main entrees, three sides, and dessert that start at $99 for a two-person serving of each. Like the previous options, Durham Catering Co. also offers vegetarian and Paleo options, as well as additional kids’ meals to add-on if desired. Oh, and even better? For just $10 extra, it. can. be. delivered. to. your. home.
Donovan’s Dish: A Raleigh-based company, which offers “Dish to Door” meals that are delivered right to your house (for those in the Raleigh area). Unlike the previous options where the restaurant sets the menu for the week, Donovan’s Dish allows you to select your entrees and either have them delivered, or you can pick them up in one of their two “Take Out Markets” (in Apex or in Brier Creek).
Don’t want to commit to a full week of meals? Grab a Ready Made Meal at your local grocery store!
Some grocers are even getting into the game and families can find store-to-oven meals at places like Sprouts, Harris Teeter and Whole Foods. From quiches, to pasta dishes, to “Street Tacos”, fast and actual-food options abound!
Are these options an added expense? Yes. But, we’d argue that If ever there were a time to lean into the convenience of allowing someone else to do the cooking, postpartum is it. If cost feels like a barrier, consider adding some of these meal-makers to your registry as a creative baby gift idea!