Fresh hot meal...cooked and delivered!

What sounds better than that? It's almost supper time and everyone is hungry. A knock on your door signals everyone to jump up and answer it. Someone is standing there, holding... your fresh hot cooked meal! How can this be? It's too good to be true. (Well, almost.)

You can make this true if you start a dinner swap club. Find 4 other interested families about the same size as yours. The 5 of you get together and plan a dinner swap. Here's how it works. On one day of the week, one family cooks for all five families and delivers their dinner hot and ready to their front doors. On the remaining 4 days, that family sits back and waits for a hot cooked meal to be delivered.

It's a ton of fun. Of course, you need to lay some ground rules. The rules consist of when dinner should arrive, keeping in mind each person must make 4 deliveries on their night. Also, there must be some agreement as to menu. It wouldn't work for one person to deliver mac & cheese and weenies while someone else delivers lasagna and salad. You get the idea. In fact, the 5 families can plan the meals together if you like.

A group of 5 would give you 2 days of the week to cook for yourself. You may find that more than 5 families makes for an almost unmanageable delivery night, and it also depends on how far apart you live, for travel time.

STUDENTS!! This is a perfect program for you. Find others in your apartment building who want to join this with you. Deliveries would be a breeze!

Another twist on this idea is for the families to come and pick up their supper from you. Again, that only works if you live close.

If your group needs a little micro-managing, here's another tip: in order to balance out meal size, the group decide together on certain containers to use for the meals. For example, a certain size pan holds the main course, another holds the sides, another the dessert.