Make and Take (and Freeze) Dinners

Today, A and I went to one of those assembly meal places and prepared enough food to fill half our freezer and a shelf on the fridge. That's a slight exaggeration, but not much. We made one dessert and 11 entrees (one to give away to the mom of twins). Each item serves 4 to 6, so that's a lot of food. We tried another place a few months ago and found that most entrees ended up more on the 4 side, rather than the 6 side. I suspect that will be the same with what we made today.

The last place we tried was just okay (too many casserole type meals). But I guess that A liked it well enough since he was open to helping me again. I'm a little skeptical of the cost since we paid $199 and that's more than our entire grocery budget for the month. I know I could make the meals myself for much less, but somehow, I think it helps A to have the nice labels all printed up and everything packaged just so. That $199 was a special deal and was about a 30% discount. Otherwise, I would have opted for fewer meals, though, this month there were several dishes that I liked. As we were finishing up, they offered us the $199 special for May, but I knew that there's no way we'd finish all these meals in time to empty the freezer for the next batch (plus there weren't 12 items that sounded interesting).

A was telling a friend about this and he said his wife does this all the time, but selects the pickup option. I think I like making the meals myself better, though it did take the two of us almost the entire two hours to make the meals. I think we were getting in each other's way. It probably would have been more efficient for each of us to make six items, rather than helping each other make each entree. At least when we make the meals ourselves, we can control the spices (less pepper and rosemary, more garlic and cilantro).

If you're interesting in finding one of these places near you, here's a list. It turns out there are six of these places within just a few minutes drive from us. That's a lot of competition. It will be interesting to see who lasts and who doesn't.