Dream Dinners

A couple of weeks ago, our daycare hosted an intro night at a place called Dream Dinners in Bucktown. The basic concept is this: You go in for about an hour, one day a month, and assemble a bunch of meals in ziplock bags. They have all of the ingredients prepped, chopped, and organized; the instruction sheets are dummy-proofed; and the Dream Dinners staff follows you around and cleans up the mess. At home, just throw the meals in the freezer, and then you have 12 ready-to-go dinners whenever you need them.

We tried a bunch of the menu options at the intro party, and the food was actually pretty good. We're hoping Molly thinks so too, because the whole point is that this will help us get dinner ready after work so that we can all eat together as a family. We will have to plan ahead and make sure we have meals defrosted on the days we need them, but I have a feeling those days will be Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. That's when we're always scrambling!

The total bill for the 12 meals came to $190, which divides out to $15.83 a meal. Each meal has 3 servings, and Molly won't actually eat a full serving, so I think we should have some leftovers for lunches too. If that's the case, this should fit within the austerity plan, but I'll have to keep an eye out to make sure we're spending less at the grocery store each week to compensate. Otherwise, Dream Dinners will have to go. 

I went this morning with 2 of the moms from daycare and it was actually pretty fun. The staff nicknamed us "The Tornadoes" because we set up an assembly line and were racing around to get everything put together as fast as we could. Busy moms gotta hurry, right?

Apparently it's a popular place to be, because I ran into a friend from high school this morning. And at the intro night, Jason and I were identified by a nurse from Northwestern hospital who was there when we delivered Molly. Yes, a year and a half later and she recognized us! Probably because my labor and delivery was like an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Ha!

Anyway, this month, we are trying: penne with chicken and peanut sauce, seared sesame crusted tuna, savannah grill chicken with sweet potato fries, creamy chicken risotto, three cheese pasta with meatballs, parmesan crusted chicken, carne asada steak tacos, dill marinated shrimp with pasta, and crispy coconut chicken with jasmine rice. There's an effort to use low-fat ingredients, brown rice, and whole wheat pasta. According to the nutritional information listed on the website, the meals are actually pretty healthy, and the controlled portions should keep up from overeating. In theory.

My freezer now looks like this:

Stuffed to the brim!

I hope this does save some time in the evenings, because Jason and I are going to be busy as bees these next few weeks clearing out our condo and prepping to sell!