Lemon & Sage Market — Local services in Springville

While this company offers many separate options (they have a local market of goods, cooking classes for kids, etc), check out their "Dinner Crafts" on their website -- that's what this review is about. For $155 you go for about 2.5 hours and do all the assembly of 8 different dishes which will feed 6-8 people. If you have fewer people to feed, then you can stretch that out to 16 meals (they charge $10 more since you're using more take-home tins). For us, some of the 3-4 person meals actually are two meals... like the lasagna is split into two tins with the 16 meal plan, but then each tin feeds us for 2 nights (for 3 people, one large portion eater and two smaller portion eater) so that means 4 meals in a month are lasagna. So it's common for us to have leftovers even after separating into the smaller portions.

Before you get there, they've done all the shopping, planning and prep work. They make the sauces and fillings, you just put them together (most of them still raw) and take them home uncooked and freeze them. So, for the Chicken Enchiladas, they've cooked and cut the chicken, made homemade cream of chicken soup, added the other ingredients and you just use an ice-cream scoop to plop the mix (twice) into a tortilla, wrap them up, and cover them with a green chili mix and top with cheese.

Many of the dishes are for the crock pot for 4-8 hours (for our crockpot, it's usually done in 2.5 hours even on the lowest setting -- use leave-in thermometers and eat when it's done), or a few of the dishes you throw into the oven. We also now use an Instant Pot for many of the dishes which dramatically cuts down the cooking time but also makes some of the beef dishes so much more tender.

It's a great plan and the meals are very good, way better than store bought freezer foods (they generally feel homemade and not from the freezer or store bought at all) and since they're buying in bulk for ingredients it works out cheaper than shopping for and making them yourself, especially when you factor in all the shopping/prep time you save and that you aren't buying 30 sprigs of rosemary when you only need 4).

You get a binder full of all the final prep instructions including what other things you can serve it with. A number of the dishes suggest you serve with rice, for example. So for dinner, you just thaw the tin a day ahead (optional), cook it and assemble the other items for your table and you have a great dinner with very little effort. One day a month for 2.5 hours and you get 16 + meals (for 3-4 people) that don't require much more than cooking them. I don't know why this isn't a common thing everywhere. There are the meals you can order online where you're paying shipping and dry-ice fees... I haven't tried those but this is much cheaper per meal from what I gather.

Pro Tip: For a lot of the dishes where you serve with rice, we've found that if you cook all the meat to temp and make some rice, you should then add it into the crock-pot/Instant Pot for 5-10 minutes and stir it all up. The sauces are so good and letting the rice soak them up makes the rice super tasty. Otherwise, if you just spoon the meat and sauce onto the rice on your plate, the sauce just runs off and doesn't have time to soak in... and that's a waste of some...

Lemon and Sage Dinner Crafts are the best! I've gone three months in a row, because my family gobbles the meals up. My kids have even asked "when are we getting more Lemon and Sage" when we've started to run low on freezer meals. I've gone on both regular nights and Date Nights. My husband and I like the date night format, because we can work together to put the 8 meals together, and while there are still about 8 couples, we feel like the kitchen is less crowded than when I've gone on regular nights. Plus, date night has snacks! (Regular night is fine, but my husband and I enjoy being able to go together.) The store itself is full of fun, different foods and kitchen items, many sourced from local artisans. The employees have always been super friendly towards us whenever we've gone in. Definitely recommend trying them out (especially the dinner crafts!) They also offer other classes throughout the month. Check their schedule of events out to see what is being...

Great little store that continues to surprise me with new experiences everytime I go! I love going in and browsing the culinary treasures that they find and offer their customers. I have had many delicious experiences that have come from lemon and sage from desserts, to artisan olive oils and vinegars, to full meals. I have attended many of their events including girls night out holiday markets, dinner crafts, and pop up resturants and they are a blast everytime! The addition of dinner crafts has been a life saver and a great experience. I left with so much food! All of the meals were delicious, saved me so much time, and best of all, all of my picky kids ate the meals and...