A friend who is going to have her baby in a couple of months cannot afford to hire a CL. Are there simple easy recipes that she or her husband can cook up while juggling work and baby?

Yes, you can order confinement catering. I would love to recommend Natal Essentials as the confinement food is nice. Alternatively, you can purchase pre-pack confinement herbs to boil the soups such as Eu Yan Sang which costs about 290.