Boil pasta.

Heat sauce.

Assemble.

That’s all it takes to make the sun dried tomato mac n’ cheese offered on Z!ng‘s menu, a dish which is the personal favorite of business co-founder and head chef Mama Jean.

Z!ng, which was officially in business three months ago, is an app-based food ordering system which offers homemade take-and-make meals crafted from scratch by Mama Jean and her team.

It’s specifically designed for big families always on the move, or, as the website states, for people “whose deadlines are perpetually set on Never-Enough-Time O’Clock.” Rather than taking the standard quick fix option like McDonald’s or Taco Bell, Z!ng gives you the same quick accessibility while still being able to enjoy a homemade meal.

As head chef, Mama Jean strives to offer menu options that can have a wide appeal, offering vegetarian and vegan options whenever possible. Right now the menu is transitioning to a more seasonal variety, she said, featuring dishes like Swedish meatballs with garlic mashed potatoes, and a variety of lasagne using either homemade marinara or, to put a spin on the standard recipe, alfredo sauce.

“We make up our own alfredo sauce so it’s really light and fluffy,” Mama Jean said. “And it’s good. It’s really really good.”

In addition to an innovative cuisine, the menu itself is on the forefront of new, mobile-enabled commerce in that it’s accessible via the Z!ng mobile app. It is currently available for free on Android, iOS, and Windows, and enables customers to order and pay before they even get to the store.

When you swing by the Z!ng building at 3241 42^nd Street South, you simply pick up the ingredients pre-portioned and ready to go. These take-and-make meals take no longer than fifteen minutes to prepare, and are easy recipes that anyone can follow, Mama Jean said.

Although Mama Jean is the chef, it was her brother that came up with the idea to combine her passion for cooking with app technology. He was struggling to fit nutritious meals into his daughter’s hectic schedule, and began to wonder – what if there was an app where she could order food herself, and have time for a healthy meal?

He took the idea to Mama Jean and her fiancé, who is also an experienced chef and is now the executive chef at Z!ng. Together they developed the idea of take-and-make meals.

With Z!ng, eating healthy in crunched time span is now made possible, according to Mama Jean.

“And it’s not reheated take out and it’s not cold chicken strips from Dairy Queen,” she said, “It’s a fresh homemade meal that’s ready when you’re ready to make it.”

The idea took off at the beginning of this year, when the team got Myriad Mobile to develop the app, and Flint Communications to design their website. In May they moved into their new building, complete with new high-tech kitchens and lots of space for potential cooking classes in the future, and in June the android app came out followed closely by the iPhone app in mid-July. By August the Windows app came out and they were officially in business.

So far, things have been going “wonderfully,” according to Mama Jean.

“There were times when we thought it was taking off a little bit slowly, but in hindsight, it’s allowed us to work the kinks out of the app and to get some of our business strategies reorganized,” she said. “We thought the app was really going to be the cornerstone of the Z!ng take and make but what we found is we are having a lot more interest from people who aren’t necessarily tech-savvy.”

She shared a story of one such instance, where an 80-year-old man came to pick up some meals, explaining that his wife was ill. His cooking skills were limited, so it was a relief to find food that he could make, he said. Not long after, another older gentlemen whose wife was returning from six months at the nursing home also heard about Z!ng and came to pick up some meals.

This, Mama Jean said, is why she does it.

“We want to help people enjoy their time, whether it’s the busy young family that’s trying to find time to eat between school and practice, or whether it’s the older couple that’s had to have a role reversal because of health issues,” she said. “We want our food to make them think of the comforts of home and the warmth of family.”

Having grown up on a farm in Western Minnesota, homemade meals have long been a staple of family life for Mama Jean; from eating fresh produce grown in her mother’s garden, to making beef stew with her father every winter and inviting relatives over to eat the extras.

Later in life, as a single parent of three boys, she shared that homegrown love of cooking with her sons.

“That was something that we could do together,” she said. “One night a week they would be responsible for making dinner. And it didn’t matter if it was sandwiches, it could be scrambled eggs and toast, there was no genre or barriers.”

As the boys grew and invited friends over, Mama Jean would always cook for everybody, earning herself the nickname that has stuck and is now her signature on the Z!ng website. And now, her oldest son is the assistant chef at the Z!ng facilities.

“And he is a wonderful cook,” Mama Jean said.

Besides having her son as assistant chef, her fiance as executive chef, and her brother as a business partner, there is another part of the Z!ng extended family: Fargo.

“It’s almost surreal,” Mama Jean said, thinking on how the startup community has encouraged her and her team as they start this business.

“The people that we’ve met, the support that we’ve been offered, the dynamics and the energy of the startup community in Fargo-Moorhead… I don’t think it exists like this anywhere else. I really don’t.”

Learn more about Z!ng here.

All photos provided by Mama Jean.