Busy families prepare fix-and-freeze meals

CEDAR RAPIDS - Tiffani Wurster doesn't cook.

“I can't cook,” she says. “I can't bake, I can't cook. I don't enjoy it.”

Yet the Marion woman was one of 11 Linn Area Credit Union employees in the Edgewood Road Hy-Vee Club Room recently, taking a couple hours of her time to measure ingredients into plastic storage bags to make the marinade for Asian BBQ Chicken.

Her colleagues are the store's first DISH group: Dinner is Solved at Hy-Vee.

Part meal preparation, part socializing, DISH helps busy families prepare fix-and-freeze meals. For Wurster, it's the perfect answer to that age old question: What's for dinner?

“This helps things out,” she says. “I like that I can take it out the night before, or the day of, to thaw and it's ready to go that night.”

Convenience is a key component of DISH.

“We have everything set up so that when a group comes in, they can start working on their recipes,” says Mary Pat Esch, the store's Club Room manager.

Here's how it works: A group comes together, selecting a leader who attends a 15- to 20-minute orientation in which questions about the program are answered. It chooses recipes it wants to make from a Hy-Vee database of 200 fix-and-freeze meals.

“Groups can alter the ingredients,” Esch says. “If they want to use low-sodium broth or whole wheat pasta, they just need to let me know and I'll take care of it.”

Once a group submits its recipe lineup, Esch generates a grocery list and hits the aisles, purchasing everything the group needs to make the meals.

Ingredients are arranged on long tables in the Club Room, with labels identifying the recipe the ingredients will make. Once a group comes in, each member is assigned a recipe and spends the next two to two-and-a-half hours prepping it. Finished meals are bagged, labeled and placed in the members' coolers lining the hallway.

Groceries are a suspended transaction until a group is finished. That way, any items that weren't used can be returned to shelves and deducted from the group's total. Likewise, if another bag of shredded cheese or an extra lemon was grabbed from the store, it can be added to the bill.

Leftover dry ingredients - flour, spices, sugar - are labeled and stored for the group's next DISH gathering.

The grocery bill is totaled and divided by the number of meals made to determine the total meal cost. Group members then pay for the number of meals they made.

For instance, Jessica Hart of Cedar Rapids is bringing home five meals from the DISH gathering. Her total will be less than Marie Lucas of Central City, who is bringing home eight meals.

The average meal cost is between $10 and $15. Each meal serves four people.

“I have two teenage boys and it gets hard to think of what to make them,” Hart says while prepping white lasagna chicken. “They eat a lot, so anything that makes my life easier, I'll try it.”

Lucas, who is the leader of the Linn Area Credit Union group, says it's the combination of having several dinners on-hand and social time with work friends that makes DISH fun.

“We hope to make it a monthly thing,” she says.

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DISH Details

The Edgewood Road Hy-Vee is the first store in the Cedar Rapids area to offer DISH to customers. The program also exists at stores in Bettendorf and Dubuque, and other Hy-Vee stores throughout the Midwest.

A minimum of 6 people and 50 prepared meals is required for each DISH group.

Hy-Vee will shop, set up, cut meat to specification and clean up. Shopping lists must be submitted to Hy-Vee at least two weeks before your group's DISH event.

Groups are allowed two to two-and-half hours to prepare their meals.

To learn more, contact Mary Pat Esch at

1064clubmgr@hyvee.com or (319) 378-0762.