Maybe most of us feel as though we have no time to cook. But there's plenty of evidence that many of us — and particularly parents with children at home — still believe there's value in a home-cooked meal shared around a group table.

One indicator: a trend that's growing like a mushroom in the dark and being embraced by consumers nationwide. These new businesses, with names like Dream Dinners, Build-a-Meal and Dinner Studio, are called "meal assembly kitchens" or "fix-and-freeze shops," where customers go by appointment to put together their own heat-and-eat meals, using recipes and prepped ingredients provided for them.

The Easy Meal Prep Association, a trade organization (easy mealprep.com), says that by the end of 2006, there will be 1,100 kitchens in the U.S. with annual sales of $270 million. (The organization lists 331 companies with 951 outlets, plus another 424 businesses "coming soon.")

There were fewer than 175 meal assembly kitchens in 2004. Dream Dinners in Washington state, which pioneered the concept in 2002, has seen its business grow by 100 percent every year.

The rather clinical term "meal assembly kitchen" belies the sense of high spirits, warm fuzzies and fun that was evident Thursday night when Hawai'i's first Dream Dinners outlet opened in Niu Valley.

The Dream Dinners open house was scheduled for 5:30 p.m., and by 5:24, there were nearly 50 people queued up outside — mostly women but a sprinkling of men and children, chattering as they perused brochures and passed around a guest book to sign up for e-mail alerts.

Question marks hovered overhead. "Do you understand how it works?" "So do you cook it here?" "What do you think it's going to cost?"

Inside, partners Kili Garrett and Cheyenne Forbes-Roberts, along with Dream Dinners' Tracy Smith, in town from company headquarters, were readying to answer (and answer and answer) these common questions.

Because while the idea is simple, it's a puzzlement to most folks until they've seen a demonstration.

It might be easier to explain what a meal assembly kitchen is by starting with what it's not. It's not a grocery store. It's not a deli. It's not a catering company. And it's not a group kitchen, either.

CHOOSE YOUR MENU

Garrett explained how it works: After you register as a customer (online or at the shop), you check out the month's menus (again, online or at the shop) and choose the six dishes that most appeal to you. Once a month, you choose a time to form your own "assembly line," during which you'll assemble 12 ready-to-heat entrees of three or six servings each. It takes about two hours unless you're very fast and don't spend any time gabbing — although socializing is one thing customers enjoy most about Dream Dinners, Garrett said.

Garrett and Forbes-Roberts' smallish shop is arranged rather like a buffet line or a cafeteria, with stainless-steel serving stations, each one set up with the ingredients for a particular dish. Customers work their way around the stations, putting together a series of dishes to be later cooked at home.

Take, for example, chicken mirabella, the dish Smith prepped for Thursday's demonstrations. Perched on a shelf above her workstation was the recipe on a laminated card. Before her was a counter equipped with measuring cups and storage materials, a group of containers in which the ingredients were arrayed, and glass jars for spices used in the dish, each with the correct size measuring spoon in it. ("You don't even have to think about which spoon to use," she said.)

In a matter of minutes, Smith had arranged a gallon-size zippered plastic bag in a container (so it would stand up) and filled it with ingredients: spices, capers, brown sugar, green olives, chopped prunes, red wine vinegar, olive oil and a little white wine. She pressed the air from the bag, sealed it, then popped it into another bag along with an already assembled package of frozen skinless, boneless chicken breasts. The final step was to paste a prepared self-adhesive instruction label on to the outside of the bag; the label helpfully includes the date of assembly, cooking instructions and suggestions for what to serve with the dish. At home, you store the assembled entree in the freezer (or fridge, if you're going to make the dish that night) and defrost and cook it when you need it.

While she worked, Smith explained that back home in Snohomish, Wash., she has four children and a husband that are without her for many dinner hours, since she travels so much. With Dream Dinners in the freezer, she knows her husband is relieved of having to shop for and prep meals. "My house may be a mess, but I know they're well-fed," she said, with a laugh.

Like many at the open house, Jill Buss of Kailua was interested but full of questions. "The food is very tasty," she said, after munching some samples. "I like most of the flavors. I'm not really good with spicing so it's nice to have that already done." Her concern was whether the 12 meals would be worth the $270 to $280 they would cost for her family of four. "I just haven't figured that out," she said.

At $280, it comes to a little less than $4 a serving. Add a couple of bucks for starch and veggies, and you're looking at the price of one cheap plate lunch for every member of the family. This month's menu shows entrees from $3.25 to $4.51 per serving for the 72-serving package.

Buss wondered just how generous the servings would be, and whether she could eke out additional meals since her girls aren't big eaters.

Smith said the six-serving entrees adequately serve her family of six, often with some leftovers; her children range from 7 years old into their teens.

STORAGE CONCERNS

Another question circulating around the room was the pesky issue of freezer space. To accommodate a full Dream Dinners order, you'd need space for a combination of 9-by-13-inch foil pans and gallon-size zippered plastic bags.

Garrett said she's also fielded some questions like one that Ann Fujita posed at the open house: "Will there be any local-style dishes? I don't think my kids are gonna like capers and prunes even if I don't tell them it's in it." But for now, Dream Dinners insists that all the recipes used come from the corporate kitchen, where meals are tested for quality, the ability to stand up to freezing and thawing and kid-friendliness.

Garrett, who described herself as a typical soccer mom with two kids, heard about Dream Dinners from a girlfriend. She and Forbes-Roberts had been thinking about going into business together, so they headed to Seattle to see what meal-assembly kitchens were all about. Garrett said that visit opened her eyes.

"You read about it and you read about it and you read about it, but as soon as I walked in, it made sense," she said. Which is why they were happy to see so many people at their open house (eventually more than 300 people attended, of which about 40 signed up, in addition to the 60 or so already enrolled, Garrett said).

Smith said the business isn't just about making it easier to put dinner on the table (most meals take 30 to 40 no-fuss minutes in the oven, exclusive of thawing time). It is also meant to revive the custom of family dinners, which encourage communication, teach values and create good memories.

Dream Dinners got its start in the Snohomish, Wash., kitchen of co-founder Stephanie Allen, who in the 1980s began hosting meal-making marathons for her girlfriends. Word spread, women began clamoring to attend, and Allen and her friend Tina Kuna realized they had a business opportunity.

It's still possible for customers to return to that first model: Groups of eight to 12 friends can arrange to do a Dream Dinners party, sipping a little wine and socializing while they stay a step ahead of the dinner treadmill. Kinda makes you think you might have time to cook after all.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.