Entrees Made Easy - Kennewick Ribbon Cutting
I attended the ribbon cutting for Entrees Made Easy on Wednesday in Richland. The store is located at 127 Gage Blvd., next to the new Bonefish Grill. The shop is bright and modern with tile mosaics on the wall.
It looks to be an interesting business. The idea is that you spend 2 hours in their ‘kitchen’ preparing 12 meals for your family that you can use throughout the month. I am not sure where the number 12 comes from — but am guessing that 3 meals at home a week is quite an accomplishment.
What is the appeal? Besides the fact that the meals are much healthier than the normal Pizza or Micky Dees, a major plus is that you don’t have to do all the grunt work like shopping, chopping, and cleaning. The meals are diverse and all the spices are handy and all the marinades, sauces, and seasonings are ‘homemade’ from scratch.
12 entrees that would serve 4 to 6 costs $215.00, for 2 to 3 costs $130 which works out to about $3 per serving. If you are real pressed for time, you can pay an extra $30 for them to package the 12 dinners for you.
I put together their Maple-Glazed Salmon dinner. The salmon fillets were already frozen and I measured out about 8 spices from the directions into a zip-lock bag. Even the maple syrup was provided. I put it all in a large zip-lock bag and attached the cooking instructions.
Entrees Made Easy is having their grand open to the public on Saturday the 22nd from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can drop in and have the whole process explained by their staff and if you want prepare a single meal. Single meals should run about $14 to $20. The store will donate half the proceeds from all the meals sold on opening day to Second Harvest Tri-Cities. Drop by and check it out.
Cooking Accomplished! has been a great find for myself and several of my friends. The concept is simple; you go online, pick the entrees you want and the date you want to assemble them. The difference between Cooking Accomplished! and several other businesses like this in Portland, is quality! The owner is a trained chef. They have a commercial kitchen where all the ingredients are prepped by Shelley and her staff. Many of my friends, prior to joining me for meal assembly sessions at Cooking Accomplished!, admitted to serving and eating frozen or pre-cooked meals several times a week and to dining out two or three times a week. We decided since we are worried about nutritional value and using quality local ingredients we would research meal assembly as a solution to reducing time spent shopping and preparing dinners with the goal of eating healthier. The only assemble-your-own meal company that we found in Portland, that had great selections, high quality local ingredients and prepped all their food in-house is CookingAccomplished! in Lake Oswego. Since I started preparing meals at CookingAccomplished! I’ve also signed up for a couple of great cooking classes. My son attended a kids class as well and he can’t wait until the next one. Shelley has done a fantastic job of creating a quality experience!
Comment by Rebecca — October 22, 2007 @ 10:02 am