Meal Idea for New Parents (or anyone else you want to take food to)
On April 29, my brother and his wife welcomed their first son, B. He’s the first grandchild in our family and my first nephew!! Hubby and I were able to go to the hospital and meet baby B when he was about 12 hours old. He’s such a cutie and we instantly fell in love with him.
Last weekend was their first weekend home with the baby, so I went over there to help out. I watched baby B (who was napping) while C and J took a nap. I also cooked them dinner while I was there. I wanted to bring a meal that I could leave with them as well. Most people bring over casseroles or other freezer meals that new parents can heat up very easily. I wanted to do something a bit different. I decided to bring my crockpot French dip sandwiches.

I packaged it all up so they could prepare this any day they wanted to. I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and wrapped it twice with saran wrap then once with foil. I then mixed all the liquid ingredients in a large jar. I cut a little circle out of decorative paper to put on the top and hand-wrote the instructions for them. I also brought a bag of rolls and some provolone cheese (forgot to include it in the pic).

The nice thing about this option is that they can freeze the meat if they want and have this after the rush of people bringing food passes. I also gave them a bag of frozen chocolate chip cookies. I just mixed up a batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough and portioned them out using my cookie scoop and froze them on a cookie sheet. Once they were frozen, I threw them in to a ziplock bag and wrote baking instructions on the bag (I did this before with some M&M cookies too. That way they could pop a couple in the oven to have freshly baked cookies any time they want them!
One Year Ago: Samoas Bars






I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 






This does look easy and the ingredients seem really flavorful! I love simple meals like this that have a lot of flavor and make great leftovers 🙂
I love Indian Food! I totally agree about the smell of garam masala cooking!
sounds like a delicious easy meal! Great to see you and hubby last night!
BB – what is garam masala? What spices are in it (maybe I can recreate with what I already have).
Looks like an easier dinner made a bit more fun with the Indian twist!
Mom-in-law: I buy garam masala at a small Indian market near our place. I did a quick Google and came up with this recipe.
I love garam masala!!! It’s one of my favorite ingredients.
Yum! I love Indian food and this is a great way to make it at home without a whole lot of work. And pretty healthy, too 🙂
Sues
These Indian spiced beans look great! Thanks so much for the recipe.
This will be cooked in Prague today with minor modifications 🙂 (Occhio beans..)
beantownbaker — January 7th, 2013 @ 8:52 pm
Oh fun! I hope you enjoy them.
Would be helpful if the can size of the tomatoes were provided.