Social Suppers

SueC and I tried this last night, and it was really cool. It's a place where you go and prepare 12 meals in 2 hours for $185. They provide the take home containers, do all of the prep (cutting, precooking chicken, deveining shrimp) and have the ingredients at stations with the appropriate measuring devices. Best of all, they do all the clean up. We did the math and it works out to $15 / meal, and each meal serves 4 to 6 - so that basically counts as 2 days of dinners at our house. You can pick from their menu what you want to make - and this month they were offering crab cakes, pot roast, salmon, pork chops, chicken, french dip, chicken and shrimp casserole, .... lots of good stuff. You can do multiples of anything you want, too. Sue has now actually cooked one of her meals, so she'll have to post if it was any good.

I know there are variations in other cities. Cleveland has one called Saving Thyme - a friend did it there (I didn't have the $). We were trying to figure out how they make money - b/c $15 a meal is not much. I made French Dip in my crock pot yesterday, and paid $14 for the piece of meat I bought alone.

Anyway, it was fun and easy - and the food looks like it's got potential (my dh is out of town again, so we'll try something on Saturday).

Has anyone else had experience with this kind of place?

Depending on how you do it, there is great opportunity in this (re: your question about how they make money).

I have done it before and think it is a great idea. It's so nice to have a good meal to pull out of the freezer.

[SueC]

Yes, I strongly suggest you all go out and do this if you have the time, $, and desire! It was fun, and I can't tell you how great it feels to have all those meals in my freezer just waiting for me to throw them into the oven!

I'm sure they have something along these lines in Chicago. I was talking to Sue about how it would be a great shower for someone pregnant with a 2nd (or 4th) baby.

Dream Dinners is a national chain -- you could see if they have one in your area -- http://www.dreamdinners.com
I've heard mixed reviews about their food and I would rather support a local business. It would be a place to start.

There is apparently an "Easy Meal Preparation Association" that has a website listing all of their members. Both the place that we went to, and the one in Cleveland that my friend went to are listed here, as well as others all over the country.

http://www.easymealprep.com/main/direct01.php

[Phoebe]

We have Dream Dinners and Super Suppers in our town. Many neighbors have tried it and raved about it. We did actually chip in for one of our neighbors who just had a baby. She loved it. I wanted to try it for us but, DH thought it was too much money since he is rarely home for a family meal. I went off their menu and found my own recipes online and prepared a couple and it was good. I still may try it sometime. It is kind of the new thing to do around here since the franchises just opened.

Jennifer

[Vanquisher]

Jennifer, that is a good idea to do it on your own. I have known a few ladies who do once a month cooking, and I think that could be a really good option. I think it is something I need to put some thought into as well. I think it would have to save you money, because you are sticking to a grocery list, which cuts down on unnecessary food item purchases, food that goes bad before you can use it, and impromptu eating out that occurs when eveybody (me) is too tired to think of what to prepare for dinner and follow through with that. It has to be so much easier to pull out an eitire meal from the freezer and just go with that.

Maybe I will start out with two week cooking, and go from there. Of course, this just might end up being one of those things I think about doing and then never actually get around to it. Freezer space is also an issue.

Another bonus of once/month cooking is that you can maximize ingredient use and preparation -- make marinara for pasta, lasagne, eggplant parmesan, meatballs, etc. You get a basic ingredient for a bunch of meals all at once.

Freezer space is definitely an issue and you can alleviate that somewhat by using ziploc bags (or the stand up ones) and stacking them -- takes less room than a pyrex dish. If you did eight meals, you would have two per week and for me that would count as a month's worth (I would like to do something different the other days).

There is a book out that I am blanking on the name of which suggests month long menu plans.

This is what I was thinking of:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/189140 ... s&v=glance

[Rapunzel]

I've heard of once a month cooking and it sounds soooo appealing - and, on some level, so intimidating! Maybe I should just buy that book and try it once. I seriously feel so intimidated by the idea for some reason. Maybe it's not as overwhelming as my imagination is making it out to be....

Jennifer

[Rapunzel]

Maybe I will start out with two week cooking, and go from there.

I like Heidi's idea of working up to once a month cooking. That sounds like something I could possibly do. Good idea!

Jennifer

The women at social suppers told us of a group of ladies who had come in one month, then didn't the next, then came back the 3rd. The ladies said after doing this the first month they thought "why don't we just get together and do it ourselves?". Each woman brought a recipe, grocery shopped for it, and they all converged on one house. 9 hours later they were done (including all the prep and the clean-up) and they'd only saved $7 each.

I'm not into it for $7. I could probably save more if I wanted to make a lot of stuff with ground beef in it - but otherwise, I'll do this again.

I don't think I could eat the frozen oven-ready stuff for a month straight. I'd need a break with some fresh food and at least one night of scrambled eggs. I think having 8-10 meals per month would be the most I use. As it is, we probably do a frozen thing 2x/month (not store-bought frozen, prepared by moi frozen). I would like to increase it. Maybe this will inspire me!