Dinner By Design

[Joy]

Has anyone tried this?

[Slacker]

I've done a couple of these places. My husband didn't like the food and thought it wasn't very healthy. Lots of cream sauces, etc. So I stopped. Well he liked a couple of the dishes but he didn't like most of it.

It's probably worth a try though.

[Joy]

Considering the alternative... it seems like a good idea to try it. It's most definitely healthier than the alternative!

I ordered 6 "mini-meals" (feeds 2 to 3 people), and I'm going to be picking them up instead of putting them together there. I can't schedule a session because of my work schedule. We'll see if it's any good.

[Khamelion]

Bleh, no, and I wouldn't either.

[Joy]

Why not? To me the idea of having real food available without having to grocery shop or cook seems absolutely ideal. What we've been doing is NOT working by any stretch of the imagination. I simply cannot be responsible for feeding myself. (I do okay making sure that Travis eats relatively well though, but that's different.)

[Khamelion]

Why not? To me the idea of having real food available without having to grocery shop or cook seems absolutely ideal. What we've been doing is NOT working by any stretch of the imagination. I simply cannot be responsible for feeding myself. (I do okay making sure that Travis eats relatively well though, but that's different.)

I'd have to read the ingrediants of this "real food" from this place first. But regardless...

...I'd rather cook. I'd rather gather groceries that will sustain at least a week or two of dinners, with maybe a night or two eating out.

Grocery shopping isn't that hard. To save money, you go through their magazine (if they have one) and find out what is on sale that week and make a list of what you will use that is also on sale. (I know you can do this Joy, lists are fun) Now the coupons are a little more difficult. There are normally ones throughout stores, and also in the newspaper. This is pretty optional but useful.

Next, you go the grocery store, make it the only thing that is going to be on your mind for the next hour or so. Start on aisle 1. Go alllll the way through, grab things that will be good for main courses, side dishes such as veggitables (canned, fresh, whatever the fuck) pasta (cheeeapp) other starches. I'd also go for lunch meats, cheese and breads for fast sandwiches (which could be had for dinners), rasin bread and english muffins for easy breakfasts, bananas and apples for breakfast and snacks. And just throw in whatever else your family or you would like to have. Like cookies and junk. Salad mixes are a nice short cut too.

As for preperation...well I have to go to work so to be continued...

[Joy]

I most certainly know how to go grocery shopping, and I know how to cook. I've been doing both for more than fifteen years. The issue isn't that I can't cook, it's that I won't. Even if I intend to, I won't. And even if we have a freezer full of microwave dinners I won't eat any of them. Instead I'll put off eating until hours after I should have and then start to feel like shit and probably get really irritable, at which point there's no hope for getting anything productive done anytime soon. Drinking a few beers or glasses of wine helps me feel better when I'm like that, but I can't do that most of the time because of the health effects of drinking everyday. Also, this issue I speak of is just as much an issue at lunch as it is at dinner.

I simply cannot be responsible for feeding myself, and that's all there is to it. Telling me it's easy or that I "can do it" is just going to irritate me and is counterproductive at best.

btw, the type of planning before grocery shopping that you're talking about is a waste of time, imo. Coupons have to be for at least $5 off in order to make them worth the time and effort, signs at the store tell you what's on sale that week so looking through the paper is a wasted effort as well. It's fun doing that type of shit when you're playing house ("look at me, I'm a grown up!"), but that's about it.

[Joy]

Here's this month's menu for that place, btw.

[Blaze]

@Joy: maybe the issue is motivation or maybe it isn't. why is it always your job to cook? that's my question.

with i was with my ex we would trade cooking nights. whoever cooked didn't have to clean up - the other person who didn't cook did it.

now it's even easier because two nights a week and every other weekend it's just me or me and my new man, and that kind of cooking is a lot easier.

but you know sometimes you've just got to get motivated around the creativity of cooking, i think. i cooked vegetarian for awhile, that was great, you know you look for different recipes on line and from friends, it's fun and it makes people so happy to have a home cooked meal. or the foodnetwork has these easy easy recipes where you add stuff to packaged stuff (like muffin mix and such) and it tastes home made. whatever. or get into baking. it's fun with your kids, too.

personally i like to cook when i want to cook which is about half the time....solution: someone else has to take the other half of the time! (or take me out :wink: )

[Joy]

The idea behind this is to make it so I'm not only not responsible for cooking (which I'm already not), but I'm also not responsible for making sure I eat. Peter can do that, as long as doing so doing require any more effort than grabbing a box out of the freezer and throwing it in the oven at a reasonable time. If I have to decide which box to throw in the oven or when to do it, this won't help at all.

[Joy]

btw, I do like to cook... a few times a year

[Blaze]

LOL

bring the food in then, i say! better than constantly eating out for sure.

[Joy]

I usually don't even do that. I just don't eat meals a lot of the time. I snack on crap instead, like toast (granted, it's ultra super healthy toast... ). Lately though I have been buying rotisserie chicken and frozen vegetables for dinner most nights. It's healthy and not too expensive, but it requires stopping at the store every day. And sometimes the store is out of them and then I have to go to two stores... what a pain. I'm starting to get sick of chicken, too.

[Animal]

We don't have this particular service where I'm at, but I know of a few families in the area who get meals from this place, and also the Zone diet. From what I've seen, the meals are pretty good though nothing is ever the same as a home-cooked meal. I'd rather a family eat this stuff than the slap together some highly-processed, greasy Hamburger Helper conconction or order KFC every night.

[Going B. Zerk]

---

[cracka]

I live with a girl that can cook extremely well and I've had more home cooked meals in the few weeks that I've lived here than I did pretty much all of last year. I'm usually in awe of the things she can come up with in a small amount of time. We came to an agreement that since she loves to cook and does it very well, i'll just buy the food that she wants and she can cook. She likes the fact that I like to get the dishes outta the way right after eating so she's ok with cooking every day if I want to do the dishes...lol It's amazing how much cheaper it is when you're not eating out every night and day like i seemed to do when i lived by myself. I personally like cooking but don't like cooking just for myself so i didn't do it much back then.

[Blaze]

I live with a girl that can cook extremely well and I've had more home cooked meals in the few weeks that I've lived here than I did pretty much all of last year. I'm usually in awe of the things she can come up with in a small amount of time. We came to an agreement that since she loves to cook and does it very well, i'll just buy the food that she wants and she can cook. She likes the fact that I like to get the dishes outta the way right after eating so she's ok with cooking every day if I want to do the dishes...lol It's amazing how much cheaper it is when you're not eating out every night and day like i seemed to do when i lived by myself. I personally like cooking but don't like cooking just for myself so i didn't do it much back then.

<3.

this has all the makings of relational perfection cracka :-)

[Khamelion]

didn't mean to offend...i just don't relate

[Joy]

it's okay <3

[redbaron]

I usually don't even do that. I just don't eat meals a lot of the time. I snack on crap instead, like toast (granted, it's ultra super healthy toast... ). Lately though I have been buying rotisserie chicken and frozen vegetables for dinner most nights. It's healthy and not too expensive, but it requires stopping at the store every day. And sometimes the store is out of them and then I have to go to two stores... what a pain. I'm starting to get sick of chicken, too.

I relate to this. I will cook for the kids (which sometimes means rotisserie chicken and veggies, sometimes it's scrambled eggs, which they love with smoothies made from overly ripe bananas, yogurt and fruit) and if my husband is working late he gets a free dinner at the office so I just eat a bowl of cereal later. Having to eat annoys me. Yet I love to eat really good food when I don't have to make it and when it's just placed before me.

[Jimbean]

I don't get it, I love to cook for myself

I even make my own sausage (which is damn good! :wink: ),

[Quirk Satellite Div.]

I've never even heard of this service. Even if it were available in this area, I doubt people would use it, considering that one can drive to three different grocery stores within five minutes and obtain prepared frozen meal components that can be assembled in to dishes back home in around the same amount of time it takes to make them at these locations. The amount of restaurants in the area would decrease the demand even more so, since there are many cheaply-priced ($4-7 per person-meal) restaurants in the area that aren't fast food joints within a 10-15 minute walking distance of most people's homes in the area. I don't know how much a leg-up this food is health-wise exactly, but compared to the lack of original and healthy components most cheap restaurants in the area have, it probably is better health-wise than the venues around here(for the area of similar price range). Apparently there is one of these chains in South Jersey near Philadelphia, if I'm ever in the area maybe I can check it out. The prices for these meal-person don't seem too bad considering each entree serves a family of four.

Are there any other chains with a similar service?


Oh yes, I do enjoy cooking, but I am the laziest person I've ever met, so I don't jump at the chance to hit the saute pan unless I need to serve food to other people.

[Gilly]

Cooking is not nearly hard enough to merit wasting money on someone else planning your meals out for you.

[Slacker]

It isn't hard, but it does take time. As does the grocery shopping. These places do save time, no doubt about it. But IMO the food isn't great and the food has to taste good or I'm not doing it no matter what.

[Joy]

For me, it has to be real food (as opposed to the frozen and canned stuff I normally live off of) in order to justify spending money on it, but other than that, the convenience is worth the cost or taste. My time and effort are both things that I place a high value on, and not having to deal with that shit is a huge relief, definitely worth the cost. Besides, there aren't many "real food" meals that you can make for 3 people for under $12. Great taste is certainly not worth spending extra money and, even more importantly, time and effort on when the food you could otherwise be getting is "real food" and tastes okay.

The bottom line is that the alternative to something like this isn't spending more time, effort, and money on home cooked meals. It's eating stuff that barely qualifies as food. This is way better than that.

[Slacker]

$12 is plenty to make a "real food" dish for 3 people. I buy almost all organic food, including meat and dairy, and I still don't have any problem spending that amount on dinner most nights. Unless we're having steak or something.

[Joy]

With side dishes and everything? Hmmm maybe the cost of living where you live if different than it is here.

[Slacker]

We live in the same part of the country. And I buy organic stuff at a locally-owned grocery store. If I went to Meijer and bought non-organic stuff, I could easily spend much less. I was just talking to someone the other day who has a budget for all of her groceries, including lunches and dinners, of $80 a week for four people, and she doesn't think it's all that tight.

[Joy]

Damn.

[Darkstar]

I am So hungry right now :(

[Darkstar]

I am So sick of food now :(

[Blaze]

memorial day dinner, had at midday:

hot dogs
hamburgs
boca burgs

corn on the cob

homemade macaroni and cheese (mmmmmm my 4 year old wolfed this...)

watermelon

and ta da . . . .

home made old fashioned banana pudding (which the nine year old had a second helping of) (at 500+ calories a serving, easy to understand why!!)

now i'm done, i'm readin the paper. :wink:

[Khamelion]

With side dishes and everything? Hmmm maybe the cost of living where you live if different than it is here.

Yeah she sounded about right. Especially if you weren't "orangic only!".

[Joy]

What are you guys cooking???