Meet The Cook

Hi! I’m Shaina, the cook behind Homemade Takeout, and that handsome guy next to me is my husband Heath, who helps me in the kitchen and will be the one bringing your food out to you!

I’m a wife, mom of five, grandma, and someone who genuinely loves to cook. Homemade Takeout gives me the chance to do something I love while getting to know and serve the people in my community.

I love making dinner–but totally understand that not everyone feels the same! When life gets busy, you’re tired, or you simply don’t want to figure out what’s for dinner, let me take care of that for you.

I cook so you don’t have to.

Hope to see you around, neighbor!

xo-Shaina

My Story

I grew up as one of ten children, so food –and a lot of it!– was simply part of everyday life in our house. I learned so much, watching my mom cook. She taught me that food was a wonderful way to serve others.

If a family had just welcomed a new baby, someone was in the hospital, or life had simply become overwhelming, my mom made them dinner. That meal was never quick or simple. She made a complete home-cooked meal with all the extra touches, even if it took hours out of her day. And almost without exception, that meal included her “Cheery” Cherry Dessert Bars.

I can still picture those bars cooling on a shelf in our basement pantry while Mom hurried around our tiny kitchen finishing the rest of the meal. They were my favorite, and I would sneak downstairs and carefully steal a little piece of the sugary crumble topping before anyone noticed.

My mom taught me that when you serve someone, you don’t give them your leftovers. You give them your best. It was a lesson she had learned from her own mother and grandparents, and she passed that lesson on to me and my siblings.

As I grew up, cooking became my love language and I became known as the person who fed people. I cooked for parties and community gatherings. I shared recipes and ideas for feeding a crowd on my family blog. And when I noticed someone I loved was celebrating, struggling, sick, overwhelmed, or simply needed a little extra love, my first instinct was still the same as that childhood lesson I learned from watching my mom: Make them dinner.

I couldn’t fix everything happening in someone’s life, but I could take one thing off their plate–by putting dinner on it.

How
Homemade
Takeout
Began

When our family moved to Hawaii in 2019, we became part of a busy military community where everyone seemed to be juggling work, kids, activities, deployments, and everything else that comes with family life. I started to see a need. It’s not that people didn’t want home-cooked meals. Many were just too busy to make it themselves.

So I shared my idea with a few friends who were delighted to let me do the cooking for them. Those six people told their friends, and the next week I had twice as many families who wanted me to cook for them. Before long, Homemade Takeout was known throughout the entire community, and it became part of many families’ weekly routines.

For three years, I cooked meals from my home kitchen for families and individuals who wanted delicious home-cooked meals, but didn’t have the time or desire to make it themselves. Homemade Takeout grew exclusively through word-of-mouth referrals and maintained a 100% customer recommendation rating the entire time.

As Homemade Takeout grew, my customers became my friends, and I got to know their families, their stories, and what was happening in their lives. I loved getting messages from them after they picked up their meals, sharing about their toddler who licked the plate clean, or that they invited their neighbors over to share dinner with them, or a Homemade Takeout meal reminded them of their mother’s cooking. It brought me so much joy!

My customers began using my Homemade Takeout meals as a way to serve others in their neighborhoods and communities. They began placing multiple orders: a meal for them and a meal for a friend. They purchased Homemade Takeout gift cards as neighbor gifts. They even started making anonymous donations to provide meals for those who were sick or in quarantine.

Homemade Takeout started because I loved feeding people. Along the way, it became a way for an entire community to take care of one another. Looking back, that will always be one of my favorite parts of what we created in Hawaii.

A New Chapter

Rebuilding Homemade Takeout
in St George Utah

I still believe a home-cooked meal can make a busy day a little easier. I still believe food is one of the simplest ways we can take care of each other. And I still believe that sometimes the best thing I can do for someone is to answer the question that everyone eventually asks: What’s for dinner?

So, Southern Utah, I cook so you don’t have to.

And I can’t wait to get started. Again!