Andy Tullis / The BulletinFrancie Engel, owner and founder of Mindful Meals, shows off a meal in her home kitchen in Bend.

Between work, school and extracurricular activities, it can be a challenge for busy families to get healthy meals on the table at the end of the day. Francie Engel founded Mindful Meals in 2014 to provide a solution.

“More and more families are having less and less time to cook,” Engel said. “Shopping for the ingredients, cleaning up and cooking takes a lot of time.”

For a price, Bend-based Mindful Meals will do each of those steps for you during the course of the day.

The company allows customers to choose a meal or series of meals from a preselected menu that a cook from the company will prepare in the customer’s kitchen while he or she is out of the house.

“Essentially, it’s so that more busy families can come home and sit down to a healthy, home-cooked meal,” Engel said.

Engel began cooking for others before completing her degree as a certified health coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, an online nutrition school based in New York, in 2014. Engel said her first client was an entrepreneur who was trying to eat better on a busy schedule.

“I love to cook; I’ve done it for 20 years, and I’m good at it,” Engel said. “So I took the job.”

Today, she employs two cooks and has about five clients on a recurring basis. Customers choose from a list of about 30 entrees, which Engel said changes seasonally to ensure returning customers don’t get tired of her offerings. Each meal has four portions, and customers can choose whether they want three, four or five meals. Customers also have the option of designing a custom meal plan. The cost begins at $160 for three meals, not counting the cost of groceries and an associated service fee for cleaning.

Engel said a typical working day begins around 8 a.m., when she or one of her chefs will go to the grocery store to pick out ingredients. Then, the chef will travel to the client’s house to prepare the meals. Engel said the meals take between three and five hours to prepare, depending on the size of the order.

The chef then cleans the kitchen and places the cooked or oven-ready food in the fridge for easy preparation that night.

While customers can choose from a variety of entree types, from meat and poultry to vegan and gluten-free offerings, Engel said Mindful Meals emphasizes healthy food.

“I really believe in the power of food in healing, and that’s where I like to really push my knowledge to get people back to eating fewer processed foods,” Engel said.

She also offers separate nutrition consulting through Mindful Meals, Engel said, but preparing quality meals for busy households and people trying to eat healthier is the main thrust of the business.

“The last thing (customers) want to do on a cold, wintry Central Oregon night is to run to the grocery store and try to figure out what they’re going to eat,” Engel said.

—Reporter: 541-617-7818, shamway@bendbulletin.com

Q: What’s your favorite recipe on the website to make?

A: I’m really loving right now this lamb and dried plum stew that I make. It’s just such a yummy fall recipe. That’s probably my favorite right now.

Q: Where do you see the business in two to three years?

A: I see us servicing quite a few people in Central Oregon and having it be the solution for home-cooked meals. I see us servicing anywhere from 40 to 50 clients.