Meal Ideas for Post Pregnancy

I was very interested to see the response to your question as I own the business in Round Rock, The Studio Kitchen. Unfortunately, none of my customers replied to you so I will! We are the only easy meal prep business in Austin to have a commercial kitchen. That means that we can make our own sauces from scratch, unlike the other businesses. Therefore our food has less preservatives, additives, etc., than the other businesses. I was the first business of this kind to open in this area 5 years ago. A year later there were 8 other franchises. Most of them have closed down. We are working on offering a local, beyond organic menu, but the price will be much higher. We have done a comparison with the grocery store where we shopped all the ingredients in our meals and we turned out cheaper than the grocery store! Plus you save HOURS of prep and clean up work. Many people come to us for post pregnancy meals and have sent many success stories of how this "saved their life". Please give us a try. Good luck with your baby!

Our family used The Studio Kitchen when I was expecting & just too tired to cook. The meals were great...I have a super picky eater in my family and even he enjoyed them. It may seem expensive but the meals are quality/good variety and you save SO much time & clean up it is SO worth it! I was done in less than an hour & had a freezer full of meals. We just added a sald or veggie & done! :-) Much better than ordering out.

I did not go with one of those companies for a few reasons. Instead, I made my own meals and had a blast doing it! My reasons were: 1: I looked at the expense of it and found that when their meals to identical meals from the grocery store, it may be comparable, but I could save money when making the meals I wanted and freezing them. 2: I am big into organic foods along with avoiding processed foods and I just feel better knowing what ingredients go into my meals. 3: Our house is full of picky eaters and the menus available did not include the foods we would all eat. (I don't eat red meat, my husband doesn't like pasta, etc.) So, if you do decide to go the make ahead route, I have quite a few recipes that you can make that freeze well. The only problem I had with the process was that once my baby was a month old, I had run out of the food and didn't have the time or energy to devote filling my freezer back up! (I did try to devote extra time on the days I did cook, and I was able to avoid cooking as often, but it would have been nice to have had the time to fill the whole freezer back up!) I also recommend getting friends in on the process. You can have a party and have a few friends over, and you can each cook a meal and take home your own portion of three meals in no time at all. (My two year old daughter also helped, which made it fun for her, too!) It's also great to spend the time together! Good Luck with whatever you decide!

I did Super Suppers for quite sometime & really enjoyed it. I'm a flight attendant & always on the go so it worked out well for my busy schedule. The dinners are $13.75 each & each dinner served 2-3 people. The do have lots of side orders - veggies etc that you can order as well however, I liked purchasing the meals & just making my own sides - it was a little more cost effective that way. Another good one is Dream Dinners - they're a little more upscale/gourmet & cost a bit more but totally worth it as well.

Good luck.

Dream Dinners is great! They have veggie dishes too.
They have dinners you can pick up to now that you don't have to make yourself. They have a north and south location.

I did the same thing. I purchased aluminum baking dishes from Costco (30 for $8) and covered them with foil. Soups freeze well (I stored these in baggies). Casseroles, of course, mini-meatloafs (mix together but freeze raw), pasta sauce, pizza dough and sauce, etc. I found that the frozen pasta dishes I made ended up mushy and dry. ...other than lasagna, that did well. About 2 months before my daughter was born, I started doubling many of our meals. I would freeze half. Also, a group of my friends had a girl's night out at Super Supers. They froze the meals and all delivered them on different nights. The food was wonderful, even after being frozen. You can also freeze raw chicken breast or pork loins in marinade. Thaw them the day you want to cook them and serve with a bagged salad. This will save you when your baby is born.

I have done Make & Take Gourmet, and it does save you time, and the food is tasty. I don't know about the others, like Super Suppers, but I think they are all about the same cost-wise. Sometimes they have specials or coupons, so check their websites before you go. If you are a good cook, you could do this yourself ahead of time and save some money, but then you would have to do all the planning, shopping and clean-up. You spend a few hours in their store, move from station to station and put together the meals following their recipes. They have people there who help you, bring you ingredients, and make recommendations for changing the recipes to suit your tastes or dietary needs. You put the meal together and put it into a disposable container, usually a foil pan that you will then cook the meals in, so it saves you some clean-up time at home. They give you a sticker to put on each meal with cooking and serving instructions. Since you have a small family, you could also split each meal, and get at least 2 if not 3 meals out of each one. The meals are usually designed to serve 6, but I found that some of them are smaller and only serve 4. All the meals freeze well, and you just take them out the night before or the morning of and defrost then cook. The meals are usually a main dish only, so you will have to handle vegetables or other side items yourself. Some meals are complete, like stew or stir fry, and have vegetables included. The store I went to also had pre-made side items on hand that customers could add to their orders, like potatoes or green beans, but you can buy the same things in the freezer section at the grocery store, or just pick up some fresh vegetables and steam them in the microwave. The entree is usually the hardest part anyway, so throwing together a side isn't a big deal. It will save you time, but it probably won't save you money vs. doing it yourself. Good luck!