The idea of making meals in advance and freezing them is appealing, but because most recipes are not really intended to be prepared then stored, as opposed to eaten, taking the time to make these "extra" meals can seem like a daunting task. This new cookbook, Dream Dinners, is entirely geared towards these make-ahead meals. It was written by the two women who already turned the concept into a profitable enterprise with Dream Dinner stores where busy people (families or otherwise) can come in and prepare healthy, tasty foods in advance to take home.

All of the recipes in the book can be prepared in two ways. The first way makes up one dish for that night's dinner, while the other makes three meals' worth of food, so two portions can be frozen for future evenings. Naturally, the focus is on preparing the meals in advance and not necessarily on the meal just ahead. In addition to main dishes, there are also salads, soups and a handful of desserts to keep things interesting. Check out two sample recipes for Caribbean Pork over Rice and Pork Tenderloin with Pears to give you an idea of the techniques used in the book.

Before reading about the concept in the newspaper, I actually saw a show about this on the Food Network a few weeks ago. It is called Dream Dinners, based out of the Seattle, WA area. Dream Dinners provides a "meal assembly center" where people come, pay a given amount, and put together meals, mostly casseroles and stew type dishes, from ingredients that have already been washed, cut, prepped etc., and following a recipe that is given to them. Then the person simply takes these home to freeze them and eat over a period of a week, or even longer.

It sounds like a dream for a busy parent who has to get dinner on the table for a family of five every night and doesn't want to order pizza all the time. It's almost as fast and convenient as frozen dinner from the supermarket, but the person who "cooked" it can at least say they had a hand in it. They can consider it "home-cooked."

However, the concept has its critics. Indian cookbook author and actor Madhur Jaffrey said of it: "People basically don't want to cook but they don't want to be told they are not cooking. It's an illusion."

Is it really a dream dinner, or a cop out?