Hi, all! It’s Charmaine. I’m starting a new series in which I pull back the curtain on my work with postpartum mamas and their families. In these posts, I’ll be sharing an in-depth look at my visits with families, including the meals I serve and why.
Let’s get cooking!
The way I structure my visits is that clients book two four-hour visits in one week. This enables me to get a LOT of food cooked. I usually try to buy a large amount of one meat and then use that meat for various nutrient-dense meals.
This week, that meat meant to stretch into so many wholesome foods was a roasted whole chicken.
I’ve been roasting whole chickens for my family for quite a while, and it’s always such a treat. Fewer things are better than a kitchen filled with the fragrance of a chicken roasting in butter, rosemary and garlic. And I’ve learned it’s a fantastic meal to serve postpartum mothers, as well.
I always roast a chicken with vegetables like carrots, onions and potatoes right there in the same pan so it’s a one-pan meal. Once that was finally ready, I carved up half the chicken. I left half with the veggies (still a good amount) for my client’s family to heat and enjoy that evening. The bones and half the chicken was squirreled away for the next visit that week.
Breakfast for the postpartum mom was maple cinnamon oatmeal. This was a hybrid recipe– I gathered inspiration from an Instagram reel recipe she sent as a request, and I doctored it to make it delicious and nutritious! She ended up LOVING this oatmeal, and requested it for breakfast for each of the four visits I had with her.
Then I got started on a snack that would last my client a few days. I whipped up these banana bread cookies, recipe from the Food Doula. My client loves banana, oats, and chocolate, and these were PERFECT! The oats encourage breastmilk supply and the recipe itself is lighter and healthier than a typical cookie. Recipe notes: Best results from using all-purpose flour, not bread flour. I also ground up 1/4 cup oats into oat flour to make this an easy 1 C flour. I blended up the wet ingredients with a hand blender then folded in the dry. Sooo good!
Then I set to work on lunch for my beautiful mama client and her family. This was another requested recipe. The thing about my practice is this: I have curated a collection of meals that I know are super restorative and delicious BUT I also entertain requests, because I want my mothers to love what they are served.
So– and maybe this was a risky move on my part– I embarked on making dirty cabbage for the first time.
The dirty cabbage, in my view, was like making a bolognese sauce from scratch with bell peppers and the usual mirepoix ingredients, then sauteeing in a ground beef/sausage mixture with cut cabbage wedges until everything in the pan is soft, spiced, juicy, and delicious. For added nutrition, I used an ancestral meat blend from Publix that includes organ meats in the ground beef.
This dish got rave reviews from the family! Sounds like I need to start adopting it in my own meals.
So far, I had made a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for mama AND her family that would yield multiple servings, at least for the giant pot of oatmeal and the dirty cabbage. The chicken and veggies was probably one meal.
I ended the visit by washing and cutting fresh fruit. I believe fresh, seasonal fruit is so healing for a mom just finished laboring. Plus, her family loved it, too. I even had time to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her daughter for lunch before cleaning up and heading out.
Four hours of cooking. Many meals. Lots of love.
This particular visit was a blessing. Stay tuned for the next visit in the same week!
Charmaine