MealBaby Makes Cooking for Friends in Need Easy

Who doesn't love a home-cooked meal, especially when you're sick, tired, or going through a rough time? It used to take lots of emails and phone calls to organize a week, or month of meals for a friend recovering from surgery, or a co-worker with a new baby, but MealBaby makes it super easy.

I first heard about MealBaby this summer when someone organized three months of meals for a friend who had recently given birth to her second child.  Their meal registry included a color-coded calendar where I could sign up for the night I wanted to cook for them. Green days were available, red days were taken, and blue days were ones I'd already signed up for (see the screenshot of a sample Meal Registry above).

The registry also included information about food preferences, allergies, the best time to drop off the food, and places where they liked the take-out.

You can also allow people who live too far away to cook to send gift cards for restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen, P.F. Changs, and Applebees, and add a button for people to, "provide food to those who don't have any" by donating to Feed the Children.

Have you used MealBaby before? If so, how did you like it?  What did you cook for your friend, (and do you have any recipes to share!).

You can read more about MealBaby on these blog posts:

• MealBaby: Making it Easier to Share Meals on Apartment Therapy The Kitchn
• MealBaby.com on The Mommy Journal
• mealbaby on Healthy Mum, Happy Baby
• It's a Meal . . .Baby on Super Mommies