Even people who love to cook can be busy at times. Are instant TV dinners and take-away meals the only solution? Apparently not.

Nutritious, delicious "chef-created menus, which include chicken, fish, beef, fish and vegetarian selections, change from month to month and season to season" cooked from home any time, any day. Sounds like a dream? Well, it is if you think about doing all the prep work yourself. What will be more amazing is if the planning and shopping will also be done by someone else.

Too good to be true? Enter the world of meal-assembly stores.

This is a new trend in the food industry where customers come to a store to assemble prepared and ingredients into freezer-to-oven containers.

The Hartford Courant's Korky Vann writes:

In most cases, folks depart with 12 ready-to-freeze meals (complete with cooking-instruction labels) at a cost of about $200. Each entree feeds four to six. Those with smaller families - or smaller appetites - can split the entrees into containers serving two to three. Companies estimate that most families eat at home three to four nights a week, which means that, with leftovers, the 12 meals would provide a month's worth of a family's at-home dinners.

Customers have expressed their satisfaction. "Not having to think of what to make or shop and do all the prep work saves people a tremendous amount of time. It also saves money. How many times have you bought something you planned to make, but not gotten around to it and ended up throwing it away? This way, all you have to do is take the meal out of the freezer and pop it in the oven."

I suppose this is a compromise in convenience and healthy eating - something on the food industry watch list.

Read the full article Presto! Dinners Done.

Click on the links for the websites of Dream Dinners, Super Suppers and Let's Dish! to know more about these companies and their services.