It was obvious to Joy DeJong that she had fallen into a rut with meal preparation when her family joked, “Will it be spaghetti or tacos tonight?”

Like other working mothers, DeJong wanted to feed her family healthful meals, but struggled to find the time to cook. But that all changed when she attending a cooking class at a franchise called Super Suppers.

“I forgot how much fun it is to cook when everyone else does the hard part for you, like the preparation and cleanup,” DeJong said.

DeJong was sold on the concept, and she and her husband, Mark, decided to partner with Mark’s brother, Dan DeJong, and his wife, Gina, to open two Super Suppers franchises in Greater Des Moines this fall. Their location in Ankeny opened Oct. 1 at 802 S.E. Oralabor Road, Suite 108. An Urbandale branch will open Nov. 1 at 11121 Plum Dr. The only other Supper Supers location in Iowa opened last month in Sioux City, under different ownership.

Super Suppers is among a growing number of businesses and services in Central Iowa that cater to people who lack the time or desire to cook. A business with a concept similar to this one in West Des Moines has already proved successful, and restaurants and others in the food industry are also cashing in on the demand for convenient and wholesome food by offering packaged or freezer-ready meals.

Grab ‘n go meals

When Palmer’s Deli opened its Ingersoll Avenue restaurant and store last October, it introduced ready-to-go entrees for people to take home with them to heat and serve, in addition to frozen entrees, which the deli has sold for several years. Patti Williams, one of the managers of the restaurant, said the entrees have been popular with customers.

“We have a lot of people who will come in for lunch and grab a sandwich, and while they’re here, they pick up something for dinner,” Williams said. “Or, on their way out of downtown, they like to stop by here on their way home and pick up dinner.”

Williams said Palmer’s offers about five or six different entrées in its freezer case and another four that are not frozen that can be heated and served. The food is prepared by Palmer’s catering staff, and typical entrees include meat loaf, lasagna, Parmesan-encrusted chicken, enchiladas and chicken pot pies.

“We have a lot of comfort food that people don’t want to put the time into cooking anymore,” Williams said.

Palmer’s entrees are either sold by the pound or packaged to feed a couple of people. Williams estimates that $6 to $7 would purchase a large enough portion of an entrée to feed two people. She says many customers also like to pick up side dishes or salads from the deli case and a fresh loaf of bread from the restaurant’s bakery to complete a meal.

“We’re hoping to become a one-stop shop with our ready-to-go food,” Williams said. “We’re just cultivating this whole area, and we will hopefully have more options soon.”

Another business, Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating, also sells food that’s ready to heat and eat. Kim Corcoran opened her Windsor Heights franchise about six months ago in the Sherwood Forest Shopping Center on Hickman Road. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are packaged in containers and labeled with nutritional information. The food is prepared offsite and delivered to Corcoran’s store. Customers order a week’s worth of meals and come to her store on Mondays and Thursdays to pick them up.

Corcoran’s customers are mainly couples or individuals who want to eat healthy but don’t want to go to the work of grocery shopping and food preparation. The price for the meals depends on the package that customers choose. For a week’s worth of meals based on a 1,200-calorie-per-day diet, the cost is $98. For a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet, the cost is $113. Food for a typical day might include a blueberry muffin for breakfast, a chicken salad sandwich for lunch and chicken linguini for dinner. Fresh fruit and vegetables are also included.

From the freezer to the table

Deb Cazavilan also offers a hassle-free way through her Ankeny culinary center for people to have food on hand at home. Cazavilan, who owns The Little Blue House, recently started offering to prepare freezer-ready meals for people who had enrolled in her cooking classes. She said she already provided this service to a couple of customers, but saw the potential to help others as well.

“When I asked my customers what they thought of me cooking for them, the response was wild,” Cazavilan said. “This has taken off like I had no idea that it would.”

Cazavilan has bought two new large-capacity freezers in recent months to accommodate the demand for this service. She now cooks for about 10 to 12 hours a day three days a week to prepare the freezer-ready meals, and she said new customers are calling all the time. She thinks the service is popular for a couple of reasons.

“We have many dual-income families where nobody has the leisure time to shop and cook,” she said. “And there’s the middle generations – the 20-, 30-somethings – they’re not taught to cook. It’s just not a skill that many young professional couples have acquired. They’ve acquired a taste for what is good from going out to eat at restaurants, and they want to eat that food at home, yet don’t know how to prepare it.”

Cazavilan sells her freezer-ready meals by the bundle. Six dishes, which includes three entrees, one six-cup container of soup, a side dish and a dessert, costs $95. For $185, customers get eight entrees, one six-cup container of soup, one side dish and a dessert. She has a menu of about 15 dishes to choose from, each of which will feed about six people. She asks for a week’s notice to prepare the meals, and she will deliver them to homes for a small charge.

Like Cazavilan, Super Suppers offers freezer-ready meals, except customers assemble the meals themselves at the store. Joy DeJong said this allows people to customize their entrees based on their families’ preferences.

“If you know they’re a big fan of cheese, you can add extra, and if you know they don’t like onions, just leave them out,” she said.

DeJong’s Super Suppers site is arranged with 12 cooking stations, each with a recipe for a different entrée and the ingredients to assemble it. Participants can choose to assemble six meals for a cost of $109 or 12 meals for $199. Each meal can feed a family of six, and entrees can also be divided in half for people with smaller families. The whole process takes about an hour and a half.

Making cooking fun

“I think it’s going to get people excited to cook again,” DeJong said. “We’re going to make it as fun as possible, with music and hors d’oeuvres and beverages. And the recipes will be easy enough for anyone who hasn’t had much experience in the kitchen. Maybe it will even give them the confidence to try some new recipes at home.”

DeJong said the driving force behind Super Suppers is to draw families away from fast food drive-through windows and bring them back together at the dinner table.

“Each entrée costs about $15, which ends up being less than $3 per serving,” she said. “That’s less than what you spend on fast food, and it’s nutritious food that you can share with your family.”

DeJong plans to offer classes four to five times each week, and she also schedules groups of 12 for private parties.

Last October, Kristen Severs and Dawn Angus opened What’s for Dinner, Des Moines?, a West Des Moines business very similar to Super Suppers. Severs said they initially offered classes four times a week, but have had to expand their schedule several times since then. In a couple of weeks, Monday nights will be added, making it a six-day-a-week business.

What’s for Dinner Des Moines? customers assemble 12 meals that will feed four to six people for a cost of $190.

“Des Moines has welcomed us with open arms,” Severs said. “People tell us we’re a lifesaver, and that they don’t know how they managed before we came along. It’s very fulfilling to us to know that we’re helping people by saving them time and giving them back some sanity.”

How to contact these businesses:

Super Suppers Ankeny: www.ssankeny.com, 963-7603

What’s for Dinner Des Moines?: www.whatsfordinnerdm.com, 440-6101

The Little Blue House, www.alittlebluehouse.com, 965-8894

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating, 253-9300

Palmer’s Deli on Ingersoll, 274-4004