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Community Corner

The Daily Dinner Dilemma

Busy moms look for help in meal preparation.

One of the toughest questions I face each day is "What is for dinner?"  I am not a naturally good cook or one who truly just LOVES to be cooking dinner, so this question can add some serious stress to my day.  Now that baseball season and other summer activities have started, I need some meal preparation help more than ever. 

By the time we get home from practice or a game, it is 6 p.m. and the kids are, of course, starving.  I want to give them a nutritious meal and we rarely eat out during the week, so I am making a concerted effort to be better at meal planning.

When coming up with my new strategy, I encountered a new service in town that might be the busy parent's answer.  Mindful Meals is a business that is located in Arlington Heights, but in April, they started doing deliveries of their prepared meals to Acacia Organics in downtown Barrington.  All of the food prepared by Mindful Meals is "mindful" of nutrition and quality - they use organic and natural ingredients whenever possible.

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The business was, in fact, the brain child of two busy moms who did not want to hit the drive thru for dinner after a busy day.  Their meals are fully prepared, the consumer just needs to heat and serve.  I think I can handle that!  Some of my friends have also made a girl's outing of going to the Mindful Meals store and making their own meals.  This is an option as well.  You pick which recipes you would like to make, make an appointment, and they have everything in an assembly line waiting for you to prepare and take home.  I would love to hear from any readers who have a good meal plan going in their home!

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