cliv

Has anyone tried one of those places where you go and assemble all the ingredients for several meals, bring the meals home and freeze them until they are needed ?

My wife and I went a fewf weeks ago and we liked it. It makes cooking dinner so much easier. And "What should we have for dinner tonight ?" is easily answered.

Also, for us, it's much less expensive...$149 for 8 meals (each with 4-6 portions --> 32-48 portions --> 16 - 24 dinners for 2)

Min

I have never heard of such a thing, sounds fabulous.
This is what I get for living in a, relatively, small town.

edmos1

interesting kind of a economies of scale thing, since it might not be worth buying some expensive ingrediants for a one time meal.

snowy

We have both Dream Dinners and Super Suppers here in town. Personally, as someone who loves to cook, I find the concept interesting but kind of a cop-out. I can make everything they make there at home just as easily, but I do understand that not everyone has my skill set. Furthermore, they just don't have a lot of vegetarian options, and as the SO is veggie, everything we eat at home is vegetarian. There are maybe 2 things on the entire Super Suppers menu that he can eat.

The fact is...you can do the same thing in your own home for cheaper, if you're willing to put a little effort into planning ahead. But people are lazy.

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Bryndian_Dhai

There are a couple of places here in town that you can get prepared entrees and such, raw but ready to cook... But there are no places like what you describe, at least to my knowledge.

I'm with OneSnowyOwl here, though... I cook, I like to cook, and while i occasionally pick up some of those stuffed chicken breasts at the place I mentioned above, or some ready to cook shish kebobs, I mostly prefer to make my own meals. While we're not vegetarian, I have some limitations on my diet, so I have to be very, very careful of the preservatives and such in the foods I eat, so I eat a lot of organic and all-natural foods, which a lot of those prepared supper places don't offer, at least not that I can tell. We opted not to do Jenny Craig and Nutrasystems diets because they don't offer "No MSG" options. *shrugs* I'd just as soon cook anyway.

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spindles

Yep - one more vote for "I'd prefer to do it myself". I'm not sure this type of place in exists locally.

I did a cooking class with my wife a couple of years ago and the chef running it said for him cooking is therapy. He does it because he loves it. He could think of nothing better than making his own chicken stock on a cold winters morning (he said the smell of cooking chicken wafting through the house was too good to pass up). I won't say I've gone that far, but I do enjoy cooking from scratch. Also, I rarely cook a recipe only once, so as long as the ingredients I'm buying don't go off really quickly, I don't see a problem with buying them.

Lastly - my wife says one of my strengths (cooking wise) is being able to see what I can cook with a set of given ingedients...

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Bryndian_Dhai

When my husband was still a working chef (he's retired from the line, working as a general manager of a chain of bars/restaurants), he participated in several competitions. There's a particular type of competition, one that the show Iron Chef is based on, called Mystery Box... You have a pantry of common ingredients, and a surprise set of ingredients that form the basis of what you have to work with. Each chef has exactly the same stuff, and they have a time limit to get it done.

My hubby's strength is this competition, and that's because he has what you've got.... An ability to look at a bunch of seemingly unrelated ingredients and picture how they can go together to make a meal. Its one of my favorite things about when he feels like cooking... I don't have to go to the grocery store, he just opens the fridge and takes care of business, lol.

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spindles

well, he is probably several steps out of my league - at least we rarely eat something that tastes completely awful (and even those are learning experiences...)

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cliv

Don't get me wrong, my wife is a great cook, the meal assembly place is to help her out on weeknights (or really busy weekends) when we both are exhausted. On weekends, she will either cook something (always from scratch) that she likes to make or a recipe that sounds good from Gourmet or Bon Appetit magazine. Ever since we have been married, TV dinners and prepared foods are forbidden to enter the house.

snowy

But you could do the same thing on a free weekend with minimal effort. Everything you do at one of those places can be done at home. Robin Miller's show Quick Fix Meals is great for this--every recipe of hers can be prepared ahead of time and then just reheated/put together when you want to eat it.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_rm

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Rodney

There's a place like that in our town -- strictly local, not part of one of the chain operations. And it's very popular, though mainly with the Volvo station wagon and Lincoln Navigator crowd -- people with some bucks.

I took a tour, and I understand the appeal; all the ingredients are there, everything's laid out, there are instructions to follow and people standing by to assist. It's a way to get a good meal at a much lower price than restaurant cooking (and better quality), if normally you don't have enough time to do more than eat out. You don't have to menu plan, you don't have to buy ingredients, _everything_ you need is on hand. It makes cooking efficient for those who don't cook a lot.

It is _not_ a solution for people on a budget. It's for people with a fair amount of money, but no time. People with a lot of time but no money -- they're doing the shopping and planning, taking more time and paying less.

maleficent

i'm having trouble imaging what it's like - a great big mongolian bbq joint where you put all the fixings in a bowl and instead of handing it to the chef to cook, you take it home with you to cook - or is it precooked already?

Neat concept -- especially for those that cook for one regularly -- or if you want to try something out...

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Toaster126

Thank you... now I'm hungry.

I don't think Kansas City has something like this, but if it allows people to remove some stress from meal prep and lets them use some of the cooking time for other activities instead, I think it's great.

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snowy

www.dreamdinners.com

and

www.supersuppers.com

are the two biggies in the meal assembly biz. Both have been profiled on the Food Network.

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Cynthetiq

hmmm... i just use the supermarket salad bar for slicing things.... prepared sauces and pastes from jars or cans...

just seems like a lot of extra cost for a sous chef.

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Rodney

You take it home with you, cooked; you package it up in individual meal packs to be frozen, thawed, and heated at a later date (so you can have several meals ready to go), or you can just take it home and serve it that night or the next day. I think most people do a combination of both.

For some, a big attraction of this place is the ability to do maybe a week or more worth of meals in one crack, all to be frozen at home in individual portions and thawed as needed. You know, the resolution most of us have made: "I'll cook up a lot of things on Sunday and then eat it all week." Only this place makes it easier, especially for people who don't cook regularly.

And it is a good place for non-cookers to get some experience and confidence.