has anyone seen the dream dinners or super suppers cookbooks?

[cilantromapuche]

I know they are coming out in Sept. but has anyone seen them? We don't have any of those food prep places here and I would love to know if it is worth it.

[karolyp]

bump - anyone? This sounds like it would be a cookbook I would be interested in too.

Thanks!

[sarahsthreads]

Haven't seen either of those, but we just tried out this site:
http://savingdinner.com/mega_menu_mailer/mega_menu_mailer.html

All we've done so far is prep and freeze everything, we won't start using the meals until next week, so I don't know how any of them taste. But they sure smelled yummy when we were putting them all together!

The pdf file was $8.95, and we spent around $200 (actually less, I did have some regular weekly groceries in my cart too) on everything we needed to freeze 24 meals (we made extras of three of them and skipped the lamb recipe.) It took two of us close to 6 hours to prep everything, but we were really inefficient about it and it would have probably taken more like 3-4 hours if we'd actually set up the kitchen better in the beginning. Next time I'll know better, and I'll also just buy lemon and lime juice - not juicing those things ever again! :P I'm not sure how their tester managed to get everything into the freezer in just 2 hours, but still, it only worked out to 15 minutes of prep per meal, which isn't bad at all.

There are a couple of typos in the shopping list - I'm glad I double-checked it before going to the store - but overall it's put together really well.

Sarah :)

[daniele_ut]

>http://savingdinner.com/mega_menu_mailer/mega_menu_mailer.html

>
>The pdf file was $8.95, and we spent around $200 (actually
>less, I did have some regular weekly groceries in my cart too)
>on everything we needed to freeze 24 meals (we made extras of
>three of them and skipped the lamb recipe.) It took two of us
>close to 6 hours to prep everything, but we were really
>inefficient about it and it would have probably taken more
>like 3-4 hours if we'd actually set up the kitchen better in
>the beginning.

When I used My Girfriend's Kitchen, the total was exactly $200 with tax for 24 meals that served 3 (or $2.77 per serving). If I'm doing the math correctly, yours came out $2.17 per serving ($209.95 / 96 servings), for a savings of only $14.40 total over the cost of MGFK. It only took me 3 hours there to assemble everything including travel time and I didn't have to clean up anything. Has anyone else tried this at home and found it to be any less expensive? I'm willing to spend an extra $15 when we do freezer meals a few times a year so I don't have to do the prep and cleanup myself.

[sarahsthreads]

Well, like I said the $200 included some general groceries, like cereal, milk, toothpaste, etc. I could go find the receipt and add it all up, but I'd guess there was $30-$40 dollars worth of stuff that wasn't on their list, so that would put the total outlay for the menu mailer more in the $160 to $170 range. I probably could have bought the meats more cheaply at BJs rather than our regular grocery store, but it's so not fun to go to *two* grocery stores with an antsy toddler.

I don't have anything like Dream Dinners or My Girlfriend's Kitchen in my area. But if I did and it was really only a matter of $15 (or even $50) dollars more, believe me, I'd rather mess up somebody else's kitchen! :)

Sarah :)

[daisymommy]

I just did my second go around of freezer cooking last week (the first time I did it was when I was preggo with Hannah--boy did those meals come in handy later!).

I use a book called 30 Day Gourmet for all my recipes. Actually, there are TONS more on their website. Some are free to anyone, some of them need a password to be accessed--which is found inside their book. There has only been one recipe out of all of them that didn't like--not a bad track record I think! I also do some of my own recipes now that I have figured out what works well in the freezer. But I got my start with this book and website.

One thing I like about it is that almost everything is frozen fresh (ie. not cooked beforehand, just like at these dinner-prep places). So the quality is better at dinnertime. Soup is cooked before hand (I do it in the crockpot), then at dinnertime I warm up the thawed soup, add a side of bread, and I'm done.

As far as cost goes, I think it is comparable to one of these dinner kitchens--but I don't have one near me, so thats not really an option--wish it were though! I HATE clean-up later.
This time I spent $200 on groceries, and put away 2 months worth of meals--woohoo! For a family of 4 it would have been only one month's worth, but since Joshua eats very little, and Hannah isn't on table food, these 30 meals were split in half to make 60.

It took me 2 days to make them all, but I really wasn't working straight thru the process either; just a little bit here and there, while taking care of the kiddos in between. Sure, Josh watched too much TV those 2 days, but he isn't permanently scarred. Hannah was content to watch from her swing or bouncy seat.

I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE popping dinner in the oven 30-60 minutes before dinner and having it cook by itself while I take care of my fussy evening kiddos. Clean-up time is easier too. I'd recommend freezer cooking to anybody!

More tips to follow if I think about it.

[o_mom]

Is this the book you used?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966446755/sr=1-1/qid=1155925749/ref=sr_1_1/103-5666061-4425450?ie=UTF8&s=books

(I couldn't find one callled "Freezer Gourmet")

[o_mom]

Is this the book you used?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966446755/sr=1-1/qid=1155925749/ref=sr_1_1/103-5666061-4425450?ie=UTF8&s=books

(I couldn't find one callled "Freezer Gourmet")

[daniele_ut]

>Well, like I said the $200 included some general groceries,
>like cereal, milk, toothpaste, etc.>
>Sarah :)

Gotcha! I misread that in your OP and thought that I read that you had some of the groceries you needed for the meals already at home. I should learn not to read so quickly, since I miss stuff!

[daniele_ut]

>Well, like I said the $200 included some general groceries,
>like cereal, milk, toothpaste, etc.>
>Sarah :)

Gotcha! I misread that in your OP and thought that I read that you had some of the groceries you needed for the meals already at home. I should learn not to read so quickly, since I miss stuff!

[daisymommy]

OOps! Yep, thats the book :) I'm editing my post now. Thanks for catching that!

I forgot to mention how organized this book helps you to be. Plenty of fill in the blank shopping lists, charts, ingredient checklists, etc. You can Xerox them from the book, or print them off their website.

[spencersmommy]

What kinds of meals are included? I am a bit picky about food. A lot of time the meals that are in my Real Simple magazine don't appeal to me. I guess we like more simple meals (or at least me, DH likes everything!).
Thanks! This sounds interesting since planning for meals is my least favorite thing!

[jenjenfirenjen]

Thanks for sharing this. I checked out the website and think I'm going to get the book. Just curious if you have any favorite recipes from them that you can recommend.

[s7714]

I haven't seen it IRL yet. I thought about pre-ordering it, but I really want to see what recepies are listed before buying it!

I also have the Saving Dinner and Freezer Cooking: 30 Day Gourmet books mentioned in PPs. I like the concept of the Saving Dinner book, but we've found many of the recepies to be rather bland cooked as is, and not all of them are freezable if that's what you desire. I really love the 30 Day Gourmet book and website!

Jennifer
Mommy to
Miss Pure Energy 3/03
Miss Antsy-Pants 6/05

Calling fellow BBB SoCal moms...we'd love to meet you!
(100 posts & BBB member for 3 months req'd)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/babybargainssocal/

[ColorBlue]

I would love to get one of those books although I think that you can find many recipes onlline already.

My dad gave me a gift certificate to Dream Dinners (thanks to my SIL Rachel) and I got 13 dinners that serve 4-6 for $250.00. And it really does serve 4-6. But many of the meals are something I could do with little or no creativity. For example they had flank steak and marinades for about $22.00 for the dinner. That was just a flank steak in a freezer bag and a simple marinade (I think balsamic vinegar, garlic and something else) in another bag. Defrost, put together for marinating time and grill. Although it was good, it was NOT worth over $20.00. Also the ingredients they use are not the best...one of our meals was a pizza using refrigerator biscuits as the crust! Gee, I didn't really need them for that! All that said I totally loved the convenience of having all those meals in the freezer and not having to come up with something every time.


So I decided to try to replicate it. I found a great concept called "dump chicken". Which is basically take raw chicken and various ingredients dump it into a freezer bag and freeze. I found a ton of recipes for this idea (search dump chicken). I found chicken breasts onsale for 1.99/lb, bought 20 pounds and make ten different versions of "dump chcken". Tonight we are having garlic dijon chicken....hope its good!

Next weekend its beef or pork dishes!

Not sure I answered any ones question!

Tracy