Bless others with food

Almost two months ago I experienced a devastating loss when my best friend of 27 years lost her 9 year old son.  No one is ever ready for something like that because it hits you so hard and so fast and it literally takes your breath away and leaves you reeling.  Having not ever gone through anything this devastating before I was so grateful for those who stepped up to help us through those first couple of weeks as we muddled our way through all that needed to be done.  In particular, having meals delivered to the house was an amazing blessing to the family.  Here are some tips I learned throughout the process that I thought might be beneficial to others wanting to prepare a meal for someone in need.

The last thing anyone suffering a loss cares about is cooking.  Bringing over meals is a nice and generous idea and the best way I found to coordinate this service was with the use of an online site called Food Tidings.  This is an excellent system that requires one person to set up a schedule and then simply send out invites to others asking them to sign up on any of the available days to bring a meal to the family.  In addition, each volunteer is asked to record what type of meal they'll be bringing which is particularly helpful for alleviating duplicate meal types back to back.  It also allows you the opportunity to know whether there are any family likes, dislikes or allergies and how many people will be in attendance.  A note to the scheduler though, please remember to leave space for a leftover day.

You might immediately think of the Lasagna as the perfect meal to bring to a family in crisis.  I understand this as it's a comforting and delicious one dish meal that is easily portable and freezes well.  However please know that many people are also thinking this very same thought and so to avoid Lasagna abundance I'd love to offer you some simple yet equally pleasing alternatives.

Chicken Macaroni Bake

Kid-Pleasing Spaghetti

Meatball Hash Brown Bake

Pasta Meatball Soup

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

It's also a nice touch to include some garlic bread and an easy dessert with the meal if you can.  Please remember it doesn't have to be fancy or even elaborate, whatever you are able to do is so appreciated.  With so many other details to worry about, not having to think about food is such a huge blessing to the family.  Even if you don't have time to prepare a meal bringing over baking of any kind (homemade or store bought) is helpful as the family will have plenty of visitors popping in and out of the house all day long.

One other word of advice I'd like to share is to please use disposable dishes where possible.  With someone new bringing dinner each day the dishes start to accumulate pretty fast and take up valuable space in the house.  To return them is just one more thing for the family to think about.   If it's not possible for you to use disposable dishware offer to come back the next day to pick up your dishes.

If you've never been sure or comfortable bringing someone a meal please let me encourage you to not be afraid.  Even if there is no schedule set up, bringing over something that freezes well and can be heated later means that if the meal isn't needed that particular day they can simply stick it in the freezer for another time when it will be needed.  It's such an amazing gift!

Have you blessed someone lately with food? Do you have any other suggestions or recipe ideas you'd like to add?  Please feel free to add them to the comments below.