I.e. dinners as prepared (2,9)

'prepared' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'i e dinners' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'i' could be 'a' and 'a' is found in the answer.
'e' could be 'es' (synonyms) and 'es' is found within the answer.
an anagram of 'dinners' is 'nredins' which is present in the left over letters.
A single letter 'i' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

'as' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?