Take Them a Meal - Like Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas!

We have a new baby in our church family and last night J and I delivered the new parents a meal. I've written about the importance of and tips for meal delivery before, but since having a child of our own, this has become a real passion for me. Y'all, look around yourself and search for the new parents and offer them a meal. I promise you, "it takes a village" means more than helping raise a baby, it means making sure the harried parents are actually eating and eating more than just Easy Mac. The same goes for families in mourning, dealing with extended illness, or otherwise in crisis. 

I don't know this family very well (yet?), so we're just bringing dinner and sides tonight, but meal delivery can be so much more, especially if it's someone you're close to. As I mentioned in my previous post, after the birth of my niece we provided a few dinners, some breakfast items, snacks and all the fixins to make my in-laws' lives easier. 

It doesn't have to be a great production. Feeding people, I believe is my love language; I take so much pleasure in knowing that my hands produced something that will nourish their bodies, and maybe their souls. But just thinking about a person or family in need can be the thing that helps them keep their head above water. And those little extras are especially useful. 

How does that proverb go? Bring a mom a casserole and she'll have dinner for a single night. But bring her a casserole, some frozen pizzas, a pint of ice cream, a tub of cookie dough, freezable muffins, and a Stouffers lasagna and she'll actually retain her sanity during the first newborn sleep regression or bout of colic or postpartum hell. 


Let's go over a couple really easy tips to make meal delivery better for everyone:

 
• Use recyclable or cheapo plastic containers. New mamas have zero time or brain cells to spend on remembering whose Pyrex is whose. 
• Include idiot-proof instructions for reheating etc. Again, the brains of folks in are almost worthless at this point. 
• Include all the working parts for your meal. If you're bringing bagged salad with your spaghetti, grab a bottle of dressing. If you're bringing frozen waffles, bring syrup, too. Who knows the last time they hit the store. 
• And if you know they're going through a particularly trying time, with lots of visitors and little time (or money) for shopping, consider including a pack of paper towels, plates or plastic cutlery. 
  
• If you're organizing repeated meals with a group, use a planning service like Take Them a Meal, where you can include specific instructions (address, preferred delivery time, dietary needs) and each volunteer picks their "shifts" and logs what they're bringing. Please don't bring 10 broccoli casseroles in a row. They aren't a sponsor of my blog, but I can't sing the praises of Take Them a Meal enough; it's a great help to the volunteers and the family expecting dinner. 

So we showered little Eli with some love and offered his parents a chance to sit down and eat a real meal. I'm used one of my favorite recipes, which is perfect for meal delivery and freezer friendly (so you could benefit, too!). 

For some reason, as a single twenty-something, I was subscribed to a Pillsbury mailing list for coupons and recipes (probably why I resemble the Doughboy a little more now). I found this chicken enchilada recipe way back when and realized, even when I was cooking for one, that it was a find. 

It's relatively inexpensive and the prep takes less than 20 minutes. It's so easy to prepare, I could probably stop pulling the recipe out. You make an enchilada sauce from the soup, sour cream, chilies and cumin; then mix in the chicken and cheese; roll your enchiladas and top with sauce. Since all of the ingredients are fully cooked, you only need to heat through and melt the cheese and it's done! 

I love this recipe because it allows me to be thrifty with my ingredients and really plan ahead. You know I love to pinch a penny and we try to be especially economical with meat. Your local supermarket deli likely reduces rotisserie chickens at the end of the day,  at our Walmart you can sometimes snag them for less than $3; or whenever you make "basic" chicken - like grilled or even fried chicken, without a lot of sauce or bold flavorings - you can shred/chop those leftovers and freeze in 2 cup portions. Having chicken on hand is perfect for soups, chicken salad, or enchiladas! 

And these enchiladas are HUGE and hearty. If I'm delivering a meal for 3+ family members, I usually buy the aluminum 8x8" pans with lids ($1 for two!) and it's a legit struggle to fit eight enchiladas in there. What I like to do at home is use my 8X4" narrow pans and make two packs of four enchiladas. This way, we have dinner tonight and a freezer pack for whenever we, or someone else, needs it. The small packs are perfect for little families, so having a couple of these waiting in the deep freeze is very convenient. And they do freeze beautifully. 

Since everything is fully cooked, you don't necessarily need to par-bake the dish (but you could, just for 15 minutes or so), then wrap thoroughly in foil. To prepare, thaw in the fridge the night before and then bake until hot (which does take a little bit longer than when everything's room temp). And for the love of Pete - WRITE THESE DIRECTIONS ON ALL YOUR FROZEN FOODS. 1. You'll know what the eff those stacked up aluminum pans are filled with and 2. you (or whomever you deliver them to; fresh or frozen) will know how to reheat. This is incredibly obvious and a total pain if you forget to do it...like I do ALL.THE.TIME. 

Courtesy of Pillsbury.com 

Even if you aren't planning a meal delivery and could care less about deep freeze meal prep, this is a great in-the-moment meal. The enchiladas feed a crowd, they're really flavorful - you really get the cumin and the chilies, and you can dress them up as much as you like with salsa, sour cream, guac etc. 

I like to serve mine with what my Venezuelan friend calls "Mexican salad" (now that's a sociology project for sure). It's greens and cucumbers topped with canned whole kernel corn, canned black beans (rinsed and drained), cheese, and crushed tortilla chips. For the dressing you mix a taco seasoning packet into ranch dressing. We're talking Taco Bell level of culinary accuracy, but it's so good. Who could turn down "fiesta ranch?" 

But in all seriousness, take a minute this week as you meal plan to see if anyone in your circle is hurting, stressed, totally drained or just in need of a night off from the stove. And offer to bring them a meal. Or a pie. Or a drop off a gift card to a local pizza joint. Your small amount of effort will make a huge impact on their life and show them how much you truly care. 

Why I Quit the Whole 30

Whoever said "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" is an ass.

Skinny (however you define it) can feel pretty awesome. But nothing beats mama's peach cobbler made with sugar, butter AND shortening; or the foie gras poutine at Nightbell; or eating warm chocolate cake right out of the oven, icing be damned.

Nonetheless, we are on a quest to rediscover our healthy eating habits. We've decided to do the Whole 30 again. J has done it once with all-star results including better sleep, increased energy, improved mood, and weight loss. We attempted it this spring but with a six-month-old, my new job, and J in his final semester of college, we only made it 14 days. J is determined to get back on track this time and complete the whole thing (pun intended).

Whole 30 isn't meant to be a weight loss program, it's a "lifestyle change" which helps you develop better, healthier eating habits avoiding overly processed foods. Additionally, the strict exclusion diet (such a nasty word) is intended to help you find any food sensitivities that you've just accepted as part of your life; like sluggishness, lethargy, stomach aches etc. For 30 days you avoid foods which include: legumes, dairy, soy, sugar, and grains (not just gluten-grains but all of them, including rice and corn).

The core ingredients and recipes we've found are still delicious (like last night's dinner - recipe HERE), we actually eat many of them when we're not exclusively on W30. However, it requires a lot of thought and planning for your meals. You have to consciously check labels, think about what might be added at a restaurant, and organize your every meal and snack. All of which are technically good things, but they may very well result in not eating out for a month or acting out the Inquisition at any restaurant, skipping meals with family who won't support you (I see that cake, Mom), or bringing your own lunch to the office cookout (here are some other great tips about W30 life).

We started W30 on Monday and by Thursday I was losing my mind; Friday, I was crying; and today (Saturday) I ate Cookout for dinner (their hush puppies are #life). But this isn't a reflection on the diet. This was a reflection on my life, especially how I'm adapting to motherhood.

My heart wasn't in this from the beginning. Sure, I'd love to feel better, lose weight etc. but I just couldn't get on board. I began tearing myself down from the inside thinking it's an awful part of my personality. That I have no will power, no motivation, that I can't even put the cookies down for a month. I started thinking I was the biggest loser ever. I couldn't remember a single accomplishment in my life, especially one that required "hard work" or "sacrifice." I figured I'm just one of those entitled millennials you hear so much about; who can't give up her Unicorn frappuccinos and avocado toast.

But suddenly it hit me. It's not that I'm weak, it's that I'm putting too much effort into being strong in other ways to be strong about sugar.

Currently, my life is scheduled down the minute. I'm a breastfeeding mama with a full-time job who pumps three times per day at work. I rush to pick baby up after work, get a little over an hour of quality time and then begin the bedtime routine by 7 p.m. J works nights, so once baby is in bed, I'm at home to do chores, community work, and perhaps relax until time to pump again at 10 p.m. And I do this over and over and over. It's a great system for our family since J gets (free) quality time with baby instead of him going to ($$$$) daycare and my parents get to see the baby every day too. But it's exhausting in its strictness and most of our meals are focused on convenience.

Sometimes my after-dinner snack is the most exciting part of my day. And you have no idea how much I look forward to the weekend when we can share parenting duties and go out for warm waffle cones or sushi. Losing the only spontaneity in my life in exchange for increased planning, prep and cooking, was giving me anxiety. It was like the last adventurous thing in my day-to-day life was being ripped from my hands and replaced with kale salad.

And in my hyperventilating, I felt like another roadblock was coming into my life. As a breastfeeding mom with a 7 o'clock curfew there are so many things I can't do: drink alcohol, consume much caffeine, eat total junk that will muck with milk production, stay out late. But now I had a whole other set of voices in my head saying "no milk," "no cheese," "no hummus," "no corn salsa," "no chocolate chips"... and I couldn't take it.

My emotions and my experiences are so tied up in food that planning the baby's birthday party (one already!!) was sending me into a exclusion diet spiral. I want to nibble on his little icing covered fingers. I want to eat mini pimento cheese sandwiches. I want to read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" to all the kiddos while eating Teddy Grahams.

I melted down over breakfast yesterday. And I realized that this strictness can't work with my lifestyle right now. I can't add another chore. I need a diet with flexibility where I can eat out if I don't have time or give-a-damn to cook. I can't have another forbidden thing. I need a diet based on "you shouldn't eat that cupcake" not "if you eat that cupcake, you've ruined your "cleanse" and have to start over."

So dear friends, remember that food is important. You create your relationship with food. You can create a  healthy balance, where you can go try pie flights on the weekend but limit desserts during the week or where you pack your lunch for work but try one new restaurant dinner a week. You can celebrate with special dinners or decadent desserts. You can cope with a crazy day by making an oozy grilled cheese.

Stop thinking you can fit into any diet mold and that a failure is a reflection on your character. You deserve a healthy body and positive self image, but you also deserve an enjoyable life.

J is going to continue his W30 adventure, and I'm sure he'll crush it. But I'm done. I'll keep eating primarily "on message" but if I want a treat or if I'm too busy to make my own date-and-coconut-amino dressing, I'll eat what I want. And I won't feel guilty.