Dream Dinners Phoenix: Family Day Make & Take Event {GIVEAWAY!!!}

Ever find your­self stand­ing in the kitchen at 5pm, star­ing at the refrig­er­a­tor won­der­ing what to throw together for din­ner while the kids are scream­ing at the “witching-hour”…throwing in a frozen pizza or telling the hus­band to just pick some­thing up on his way home? Clearly, I know that sce­nario well! Although I don’t “go to work” any­more (I was a high school teacher) and I try to menu plan, it seems as though the above sce­nario hap­pens WAY too often around here! So, if you’re famil­iar with a sim­i­lar sce­nario (please tell me I’m not the only one!), a good solu­tion might be Dream Din­ners!  Dream Din­ners is the nation’s lead­ing meal assem­bly ser­vice, and I had the plea­sure of try­ing it out for the first time last night! For those that aren’t famil­iar, Dream Din­ners is a meal prepa­ra­tion ser­vice that elim­i­nates menu-planning, shop­ping, prep-work, & clean up! Sounds fab­u­lous right?! I love cook­ing, but per­son­ally, don’t par­tic­u­larly enjoy the prep & clean-up aspects! So, I was thrilled to give it a try!

Here’s the basics of how it works:

You sched­ule your ses­sion and pre-pick your meals online (nor­mally a 36-serving min­i­mum is required). Each month, Dream Din­ners pub­lishes a menu with a whole vari­ety of meals to choose from (usu­ally about 14–17 choices). This month’s menu includes items like Creamy Chicken Risotto, Baked Swiss Chicken, New Orleans Jam­bal­aya, Pesto Cheese Ravi­oli with Chicken & Wal­nuts, and Grilled Chicken with Sesame Honey But­ter (<—-that’s what I made!).  Now, I don’t know about you, but the major­ity of those dishes sound a lot fancier than the major­ity I nor­mally make! It seems like it would be hard to get in that “food rut” (you know, mak­ing the same hand­ful of dishes over and over again) with Dream Dinners!

When you show up (after wash­ing up & get­ting your apron), you rotate through the recipe sta­tions you’ve cho­sen. Each recipe has its own loca­tion, with every­thing prepped for you. All you do is fol­low the step-by-step instruc­tions for all the meals you’ve picked! So easy!After you fin­ish up at each sta­tion, you place the meal on your des­ig­nated shelf in the large refrig­er­a­tor and you con­tinue on to another sta­tion.  On aver­age, the whole process takes just 60 to 90 min­utes (depend­ing on order size, recipe choices, etc.)! Price: The major­ity of meals range in price from $10-$30, with the price per serv­ing aver­ag­ing around $4. Now, obvi­ously that price point is higher than a typ­i­cal home­made meal I can make at home. How­ever, the price is MUCH cheaper than din­ing out (fast food included) and it’s also MUCH health­ier than eat­ing out since most Dream Din­ners are less than 350 calo­ries per serv­ing and aren’t full of a bunch of processed junk! Plus, you don’t have to do the plan­ning, the gro­cery shop­ping, any prep work, or any clean up. So, the old say­ing “time is money” is def­i­nitely appro­pri­ate here!

Live in the Phoenix-area and want to try it for your­self at a reduced cost?! Here are two great opportunities:

 Fam­ily Day Make & Take Event:

Sep­tem­ber 26^th is National Fam­ily Day – A Day to Eat Din­ner with Your Chil­dren and the two Phoenix-area Dream Din­ners stores, together with the NFL Wives’ Asso­ci­a­tion, are cel­e­brat­ing by offer­ing a “make and take event”. The event will take place at both Phoenix-area loca­tions (North Phoenix and Awhatu­kee) on Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 21st from 6pm — 8pm. At the event, you will be able to choose from 1 of 3 recipes at a greatly reduced cost–just $5 for a 3-serving meal or $10 for a 6-serving!

In addi­tion to assem­bling a healthy, deli­cious meal for your  fam­ily to enjoy on National Fam­ily Day, you will be treated to sam­ples and refresh­ments, gift bags for the first 40 new guests (and a bag of choco­late chip cook­ies for exist­ing guests), and excit­ing give­aways that will be raf­fled off every 30 min­utes!! Plus, the Awhatu­kee loca­tion will fea­ture a spe­cial book­ing sign­ing event with Stephanie Allen, co-founder of the Dream Din­ners empire and author of the New York Times Best Seller List Book, The Hour that Mat­ters Most, spread­ing the word about the impor­tance of eat­ing din­ner as a fam­ily! Here are some “fam­ily din­ner” facts shared with me:

• The National Merit Schol­ar­ship Cor­po­ra­tion pro­filed National Merit schol­ars from the past 20 years and was sur­prised to find out that the one thing all national merit schol­ars have in com­mon is they come from fam­i­lies who ate together three or more nights a week.
• A Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan study found that the amount of time chil­dren spend din­ing with their fam­i­lies is the sin­gle strongest pre­dic­tor of stu­dent test scores and behav­ioral problems.
• Accord­ing to Time mag­a­zine (“The Magic of the Fam­ily Meal” by Nancy Gibbs), kids who dine with the folks are health­ier, hap­pier and bet­ter stu­dents. Kids who eat most often with their par­ents are 40% more likely to say they get mainly A’s and B’s in school than kids who have two or fewer fam­ily din­ners a week.

Addi­tion­ally, there is an oppor­tu­nity to give back to the com­mu­nity! All par­tic­i­pants can donate a meal (dona­tion cost is $7) to Sin­gle­ton Moms, a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to pro­vid­ing assis­tance to sin­gle par­ents bat­tling can­cer. Dream Din­ners will match donated meals up to 100 serv­ings. Mem­bers of the Off the Field Play­ers Wives Asso­ci­a­tion, com­prised of spouses of retired and active NFL play­ers, will be at both loca­tions assem­bling donated meals!

For more infor­ma­tion or to RSVP, please visit the Phoenix Dream Din­ners page on face­book or con­tact the store directly (North Phoenix and Awhatu­kee). Limit 1 fam­ily din­ner and 1 dona­tion din­ner per house­hold.

GIVEAWAY!!!

One lucky local Mom Endeav­ors’ reader will win a $25 gift card to either of the Phoenix Dream Din­ner loca­tions! It can be used whether you’re a brand new cus­tomer or return­ing, and they will wave the 36-serving min­i­mum require­ment. So, you can redeem your gift card for the Fam­ily Make & Take Event, to come in a dif­fer­ent time & just make one meal, or apply it to a larger order–totally YOUR choice!

Con­grat­u­la­tions to lucky com­ment #10! Kara, hope you enjoy your Dream Din­ners expe­ri­ence!

To Enter: Give­away now CLOSED! 

1. Just leave a com­ment telling me what seems most appeal­ing to you about Dream Dinners!

Get extra entries (leave a sep­a­rate com­ment for each):

2. Like Dream Din­ners Phoenix on face­book (and tell them “Mom Endeav­ors” sent you! )

Give­away will end on Sep­tem­ber 20th at 7pm PST. Win­ner with a valid entry will be selected at ran­dom using random.org and be noti­fied via email (win­ner will also be posted on this post). They will have 48 hours to claim their prize before a new win­ner is selected!

Dis­clo­sure: I received a free meal cour­tesy of Dream Din­ners. As always, all opin­ions and expe­ri­ences are my own.