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christine_dixon
[b]
QUOTE
URBANA, MD[/b] - It seems like it's getting harder and harder to find time to cook homemade meals; more and more people are either eating out or ordering in. But a new business is trying to change that.

It's part supermarket, part social event, and you can leave with enough meals for a month.

Chicken Mirabella, flank steak, peanut crusted fish filet and warm apple crisp all sound like menu items from a gourmet restaurant, but they’re actually options you can choose to prepare and serve your family without stepping foot into your kitchen.

Enter: Dream Dinners, a nationwide chain now open on Urbana Pike that aims to subtract the prep-work and clean-up out of the cooking equation.

"We know that moms and dads are busy and we just want our community to have the opportunity get around the dinner table and time-save," says Tracey Muragaki, co-owner of Dream Dinners.

Patrick Kelly of Westminster says, "My wife is looking for a place we can go to make some quick meals and take it easy because we both work."

The concept is pretty simple. Just show up, bring a few friends if you'd like, and all of your ingredients are waiting for you. From your spices, to your meats and veggies, even your utensils. All you have to do is assemble.

Muragaki explains, "Customers assemble their meals, take them home, freeze them and unfreeze them as they eat them."

"Knowing that I don't have to cook and this is in the freezer, it's great, I don't have to think about it," says Adrienne Rueinta, a Dream Dinners customer.

For a cost of about $3-4 a serving, even young singles say, it's worth it.

“I don't fit the typical demographic, but it fits my life, too. I work all day and don't want to come home and cook," says co-owner 23-year-old Jamie Grabner.

"I definitely feel that by the time you buy all the ingredients from the grocery store, you actually end up paying the same for what you would do here," says customer Amy Thompson.

It’s a concept Dream Dinners hopes will help busy families enjoy quality meals and quality time around the table.

In addition to the Urbana location, a Dream Dinners is opening up in Hagerstown next year. Customers should be aware you have to make a reservation and prepare at least six meals.



not something i personally would utilize... anyone else??
SMan
A chick I work with is from upstate PA. Whenever she goes home, she buys a couple week's worth of dinners from a similar place. Not the same franchise, but it has a similar cutesy name. I also saw the Fox 5 noon news go to one of these place a few weeks back to do a story.
CleverNameGoesHere
I saw this on the news last night too. It's a neat idea and I could see where a group of neighborhood moms who are friends might go in together on a weekend and whip up a bunch of casseroles together as a smart time-saving move, but I don't see myself ever doing it. Then again, I don't have kids and I like to whip up dinner at home on my own, making whatever I'm in the mood for. I wonder how airtight the packaging is, so that you don't end up with freezer-burned stuff. In my house, a lot of the casseroles would go uneaten and end up growing a nice coat of ice crystals in the freezer before someone would eventually throw them away. Then you'd still have to make something for dinner....
Heather
Still sounds like too much hassle for me. I'm lazy.
christine_dixon
QUOTE (Heather @ Oct 3 2007, 10:29 AM) *
Still sounds like too much hassle for me. I'm lazy.



lo. you need Meals On Wheels!
sweetliberty2u
What will people think of next. If someone going to do that for $3 or $4 bucks per serving.
Mine as well by a T.V. dinner that's already froze, I don't see much of a difference.
Some food are better prepared fresh, once it's frozen, it's really never the same.

Might be alright for some people, I suppose. I rather cook my own dinner for my children at home.

Actually people could do that very same concept at home, if they wanted too.

Instead of fixing a little, fix a lot at one time. Get that vacumm pak machine & vacumm seal bags. There you go. I use to do that a lot few years back, when I made chilli, I made enough for a extra 2 or 3 meals. Then I would freeze what was left. I also did that when I make spaghetti, I made a lot. Along with a lot of other stuff, I use to make a lot of.

No wonder people don't have much time anymore for cooking. To busy working to pay all the high bills they have.
With prices the way they are, it takes 2 income to make it these days. Who suffer for it, The children. Only seeing
their parents for a few hours a day. What a shame really. The way we live in the world is changing and it's not for the better.
christine_dixon
sopranos: " we could just heat this up..." ... "karen's last casserole??"
momsapilot
There are several "Month of Meals" type cookbooks at the library. I've checked them out, then decided I didn't want to spend one whole day of my weekend cooking for the month ahead. Maybe someday, but not right now.

I wouldn't do the service, though. Too expensive. My food budget is $250 a month for the 3 of us. Sounds like I could drop that on one a week's worth of food at that place.
sweetliberty2u
Anyway you cut it, It's still cheaper to cook at home. Especially when you have a larger family.
Sound to me that it set up more for the rich folks, then the average working class citizen.

Let's see here, $4 per meal x 31 days = $124 x How Many People in the Family, that can add up.

If a person does it for the week, $4 per meal x 7days = $28 wouldn't be to bad for a single person,
or someone older, I guess.

I like to see how many people, would want to go some where else. Cooks all those meals then come home.
That is the concept right?

Whatever happen to real family time, around the dinner table? Or is that just the thing of the pass.
SMan
QUOTE (sweetliberty2u @ Oct 4 2007, 09:50 AM) *
Whatever happen to real family time, around the dinner table? Or is that just the thing of the pass.


You prep there, cook it up at home.

I hate to say it, but I could actually see my wife and I trying this when it comes to the area. We are always struggling to decide what's for dinner and neither of us is much of a cook.
dirkthedaring
QUOTE (sweetliberty2u @ Oct 4 2007, 09:50 AM) *
Whatever happen to real family time, around the dinner table? Or is that just the thing of the pass.


We still do the family dinner and that will never change. We save a lot by eating at home and with our wireless connection we just sit the laptop by the kitchen counter and find a recipe online and cook it up. We know a few people that plan out a whole week of dinners each sunday. That way they are not pulling their hair out each day trying to decide.
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