lately I've been keeping prepped veggies (diced onions, celery and carrots) in the fridge at all times. If you need to throw together an easy meal, all you have to do is add a meat. You can whip up soups, stir-fry, shepherd's pie, etc. Taking the veggie prep work out of dinner makes dinner a snap.

I have actually never participated in one of the meal prep "parties," but am wondering if it really is just assembling the recipes? Like Sarah said, if the veggies, etc. are already cut, dinner is a snap. Do they have everything already cut, chopped, trimmed for you? Just curious....

I haven't actually used one of those facilities, but my sister and I do something similar that we've loosely based on the once-a-month-cooking concept. Long before we've gone shopping together, we've each planned a total of 6 dinner menus that'll be eaten over a two week period. Each meal then consists of approximately 8 servings, which is enough to feed our two families and even includes brown bag lunches. Once we've shopped, we prep the food at my place. If we're making a dish that includes chopped onions -- one of us will chop onions for all the recipes within that two week period -- calling for chopped onions. If a recipe calls for grated cheese, you guessed it ---one of is grating cheese for any and all recipes calling for grated cheese. Etc.Etc.Etc... Prep time is approximately 2 hours every Friday afternoon. It helps our families have similar food tastes. Anyway, some of the prepped items go into the freezer, while others go into small plastic containers. Those smaller containers then go into one large container for that particular day. If it sounds complicated, it isn't. This provides each of us and our families with approximately two weeks worth of dinners with minimal prep fuss. As a result, even my husband can get dinner in the oven, or on the table.

Maria, This idea sounds brilliant! Just one question, where can I get a sister like that? LOL. Seriously though, I have heard about weekend batch cooking for a month at a time but that always seemed overwhelming to me. This sounds so much more fun and doable than that! Do you repeat menus? How do you deal with cost issues? Do you have "Rules"?

Beverly, my sister and I toyed with the idea of OAMC (Once a month cooking) for ages before taking the plunge. Checking out the different OAMC books from the library helped a lot as it gave us a better picture of what we could freeze, or not. And truthfully, even that was a bit sketchy as some books say you can successfully freeze meals containing items like dairy, cheese, or potatoes, but we would beg to differ. That involved a bit of trial and error. (Before reading Desperation Dinners I didn't know you could freeze rice. I know now that you can. Thank you.) We split the costs equally down the line, and that was what initially drew us to create our own system. With the costs divided between us, we can buy larger quantities without worrying too much about wasting food due to spoilage or worrying about having to store the half-used food products indefinitely. (I hated pulling a half-used item from the fridge, only to discover that a science experiment was underway.) We warehouse shop together, and then hit a bakery, a Trader Joe's and sometimes one other store before we hit my tiny kitchen. My pantry is a converted linen closet and not having to store warehouse-sized packages of food is a boon for me and my husband. We do repeat menus but not as often as you would think. When we started, we sat down and came up with about two dozen entrees that we knew our families would like because they were things that we already made and served. Then it was just a matter of adding side dishes to our menu cycle that we knew would only take a little time to prepare. Let me say, that by no means is this 10-15 minute cooking. I may put something in the crockpot for all day cooking, or the oven for an hour, but most of the prep work has been done and therefore I'm not spending forever to get to the point of finally being about to cook dinner. Over the years we've expanded our recipe box. We make every effort to take the seasons into account, which is important as we live in Arizona, and don't want to eat pot roast or stuffed cabbage when it's 110 outside. The library has books on cooking by season as well and this has provided some additional ideas as we worked out additional menus. I guess the only rule of sorts is to prep, store and eat the items so that they are at their freshest. We won't buy delicate asparagus spears only to have them in sitting in the fridge for most of the two week cycle. If asparagus was an item on one of two week menu cycles, then the chances of them being eaten early in the two week period is pretty high. The pasta salad made with pantry items will probably make an appearance later in the two week cycle. Fish will be eaten early in the cycle, while the raw chicken breasts that we sliced and froze in a marinade is something for later in the two week cycle. FYI - In my original post, I meant to say we prep our dinners for our two week cycle every OTHER friday. Sorry.

Wow. You should really think about writing your own cookbook! Great ideas and wisdom here.