Meal Train! All aboard!

It should be known that I love food. I love cooking, baking, toasting, blending and nuking just about as much as I love eating and so, I use every opportunity I can to include my kids in the cooking process. I think that's one of the reasons I love meal trains as much as I do.

As explained on the website: When a friend is in need, everyone says "What can I do to help out?" The answer is usually to help them with a meal. When many friends give a meal, this is a meal train.

Back in the day, the organization of meals typically fell on one person or at the worst, fell on the family in need. Mealtrain.com is the answer to all of that confusion and it's free. Wait. What? Free? Did Dani just say "free?" Why yes...I did but not only that...there are no glitches or gimmicks...go ahead and pinch yourself. I'll wait.

Meal train offers:

• Real-time meal calendar
• Ability to customize dates, times, and meal preferences
• Invitations via e-mail and facebook
• Reminder emails
• Add booked dates to a personal calendar automatically

The entire process can be shared with your preschooler. From the purchasing of ingredients, the preparation and the delivery, you can keep an open dialogue with them about why you are making the meal, how much the family will appreciate it and what a great thing they are doing by helping. Including a hand-made card (where appropriate) is also a great way to keep them involved.