Nourishment for Body & Soul
Food is powerful medicine to nourish your healing body and your growing baby. These recipes are based in Ayurvedic principles, combined with an evidence-based understanding of nutrition, to provide the most digestible, nutrient dense, and delicious postpartum meals.
Canellini Bean & Roots Soup
Warming and hearty, this is a postpartum soul stew. (*Can be vegan)
Ingredients: Canellini beans, chicken, onion, garlic, bone broth, carrots, sweet potatoes, sage and thyme.
Chicken, Red Dates and Ginger Soup
Packed with antioxidants, Chinese red dates and gogi berries are traditionally used in Chinese medicine for their circulation boosting and skin healing properties. The ginger creates a warming effect in the body and aids in the digestion of this subtly sweet soup.
Ingredients: Bone or veggie broth, chicken, Chinese red dates, gogi berries, fresh ginger, yellow onion, carrots, lemon, and cilantro.
Shiitake Immune Boost broth
All bone broth is protective of your immune system, an important component of a healthy postpartum period. This broth is vegan, rich in vitamin B, nourishing to brain function and immune system, and has a lovely smoky flavor that can be drank alone or added to your favorite stew or sauté. (*Can be vegan)
Ingredients: Shiitake mushrooms, button mushrooms, leeks, onion, kombu, carrots, tomato, garlic, fresh turmeric, green cabbage, lemon zest and parsley.
Creamy Kabocha & Red Lentil Soup
This creamy squash soup is perfect for a winter baby season. Warming, smooth and satisfying it remedies any feelings of dryness or cold.
Ingredients: Kabocha or Butternut Squash, bone or vegetable broth, onion, sesame oil, coconut aminos, red lentils, nutritional yeast (optional), cumin, curry and pepper.
“The meals you cooked were amazing! Are you also an iron chef?! Not only were they yummy but also incredibly nourishing. I always looked forward to seeing what you would make me next.”
Hearty Vegetable Soup
A time honored favorite for all. This stew can last for days and is packed with vitamins and antioxidants this meal is nutrient dense and colorful. Perfect to make and freeze for weeks to come. (*Can be vegan/vegetarian)
Ingredients: Veggie or bone broth, carrots, sweet potato, crimini mushrooms, leeks, green beans, swiss chard, onion, ginger, tumeric, peppercorn, rosemary, thyme and apple cider vinegar.
Berry and Seed Porridge
Breakfast of champions rests in this easy to digest and antioxidant packed porridge. Your postpartum doula can focus on meals for you and your family for lunch and dinner, but we can also ensure you have a balanced and hearty breakfast to start your days. We get creative with many recipes that mix and match different nut, seed and fruit combos to ensure you are receiving a variety or protein sources, essential fatty acids and vitamins.
Ingredients: Gluten-free oats, ginger, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, coconut creme, raspberries, blueberries, and almonds, with optional maple syrup or honey.
Mung Bean & Sweet Potato Congee
Congee is prescribed in Chinese medicine any time digestion is weak, and/or blood needs to be replenished, making it the perfect remedy postpartum. The flavors of this dish are mildly sweet, and fiber packed. According to Ayurvedic medicine, mung beans are the most digestible legume and they are a very nutrient dense and regulating ingredient utilized regularly in postpartum Ayurvedic cooking.
Ingredients: Soaked mung beans, rice congee, sweet potato or yam, honey, ginger, green onions, and cilantro.
Microgreens Plate
Dark, leafy greens of all variety are the most nutrient dense food available to us and are truly medicinal. That being said, it is not encouraged in Chinese or Ayurvedic medicine to indulge in cold foods for the first several weeks postpartum. We blend this dish with cooked vegetables to make it digestible and serve after the 3rd or 4th week postpartum. Once you start eating raw foods again, it feels like such a treat to have fresh greens, particularly when they are appealing to the eye like in our microgreen plate.
Ingredients: Sauteed kale and red onion, microgreens, sprouts, shaved carrots, avocado, olive oil, lime and optional chickpeas.
Ginger Fried Rice
All family members will enjoy this traditional Chinese inspired dish. The ginger helps boost your immune system and blood circulation, and the dish feels balanced, and reminiscent of something you would find at your favorite Chinese restaurant.
Ingredients: Curried rice, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, scrambled eggs (optional), green onion, coconut aminos (soy sauce alternative) cashews and cilantro. Option to add meat of choice.
Hydration Tea
Take wisdom from Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda and keep hydrated postpartum! This tea both supports hydration, but also helps aid in digestion and elimination. Cumin, Coriander, Fennel seeds
Chicken Curry Comfort
Made in the pressure cooker this chicken is exceptionally tender, warming and creamy. We add artichoke to this recipe to benefit hormone balance, and provide variety in your nutrient density along with special ingredients of water crescent and bamboo. The warming spices of a traditional Indian curry kick start the digestion, circulation, detox, and they provide many anti-inflammatory properties.
Ingredients: Boneless Chicken thigh, curry spices, coconut cream, artichoke hearts, bok choy, water crescent, bamboo shoots, cashews, avocado and cilantro.
Classic Chinese Congee
One of the most traditional forms of cooking postpartum in Chinese culture and medicine is through congee’s. Similar to a warm porridge there are many varieties of congee in the Mother Medicine offerings. We like this one in particular for it’s classic asian flavors, simplicity, high mineral content, digestibility and comforting quality. Everyone in the house loves this dish! (*Can be vegan)
Ingredients: Basmati rice, broth, shiitake mushrooms, chicken (optional), ginger, green onions, sesame oil, peanuts, coconut aminos (soy sauce alternative) and cilantro.
Traditional Roast and Roots
This is a hearty option for the 3rd or 4th week postpartum, when digestion begins to strengthen. Using high quality, humanely-raised meat we can help the body to start to rebuild iron, blood, essential fatty acids, and vitamins lost during delivery and postpartum. High quality red meat is considered highly important in traditional Chinese medicine for encouraging healthy milk supply, rebuilding strength, blood, circulation, and vitality. Paired with root vegetables, your roast will be tender with a hint of sweetness, and soul food nostalgia.
Ingredients: Seared chuck roast, apple cider vinegar, rosemary, broth (optional), sweet potatoes, purple carrots, celery, and sage.
Basil and Beef Strip Congee
Congee is prescribed in Chinese medicine any time digestion is weak, and/or blood needs to be replenished, making it the perfect remedy postpartum. This is a delicious blend of textures and flavors between the tender meat, pungent basil and satisfying porridge style rice. These ingredients also happen to be rich in magnesium and immune boosting, anti-inflammatory properties.
Ingredients: Mixed rice blend congee, thin cut strips of beef, ginger, coconut aminos (soy sauce alternative), onion, basil, lime, avocado, and optional chili peppers or sesame seeds.
Colorful Cranberry Porridge
This innovative recipe is inspired by the incredible postpartum book The First Forty Days pink porridge. The color in this porridge delights, and adds variety to your traditional palate of colors and flavors, which brightens the mood during a difficult moment.
Ingredients: Cranberries, honey, persimmons (if in season), banana (optional), coconut milk, congee, optional almonds, bee pollen and coconut flakes.
Roasted Lemon & Rosemary Chicken
Roasted vegetables with a lemony roasted chicken is hard to beat for family dinner. Hearty, fragrant, fulfilling, and perfectly crispy this is a wonderful dish to share.
Ingredients: Whole chicken, apple cider vinegar, thyme, rosemary, lemon, pepper, ghee or coconut oil, celery, onion, carrots and red russet potatoes.
Egg Muffin Morning
Ingredients: Farm-raised eggs, nutritional yeast (optional), ham or turkey (optional), leeks, spinach, sweet potato, green onion, and optional red pepper.
Arctic Char with Russet Potatoes
Meats and potatoes are a classic pairing for good reason. They simultaneously provide the enzymes, and essential fatty acids that allow all nutrients to be absorbed thoroughly. I particularly appreciate that Artic Char is high in anti-inflammatory Omega-3’s along with having a light and mild flavor. The orange and rosemary flavors ignite your taste buds and the flavor is paired nicely with the satisfaction of a mineral-rich, roasted potato coated in dill.
Ingredients - Arctic char, honey, orange, rosemary, dill, russet potatoes and leeks.
Mother’s Milk Elixir
From KAJ’s Fourth Trimester book I have found this drink both supportive of mother’s milk production, and to be a delicious ritual.
Warm Blend of fennel, nettle, rose, raspberry-lead, almond butter, honey and cinnamon.
Mineral Rich Nut and Fruit Bar
This tasty treat satisfies your appetite in a pinch, and is packed with protein, b-vitamins, essential fatty acids, magnesium, selenium, and fiber.
Cashews, Brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, dates, coconut oil or ghee, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and Himalayan sea salt.
Mother Medicine recipes are originally sourced and adapted from the incredible Kimberly Johnson, Heng Ou and Jennifer McGruther.
Nutrition Question?
If you want to know more about Chinese or Ayurvedic nutrition and cooking I’d love to talk with you.