Easy Recipes for Family Meals with Oatmeal from Smart and Final #ChooseSmart #shop

For my family I like to save money when we shop for groceries. I think if we can save on food we can have money for extra things and fun adventures. I look at a sales ad for a store, check my coupons and plan a weekly meal list based on the deals. This week we are shopping at Smart and Final for items on sale to make easy recipes for family meals. I see that the First Street brand has many items on sale and a $2 off offer when you buy 4 participating products. We always buy First Street items and Smart and Final so I decided to plan a day around eating Oatmeal since my son loves it and it is on sale. 

My little shopping buddy always likes to help pick out items in the store. We plan to have Fruit and Cream Oatmeal with grapes and orange juice for breakfast, Oatmeal Cookies and peanut butter cookies for lunch at the park and Oatmeal crusted chicken for dinner with friends to watch some movies. We have a very fun day planned. My son convinced me in the store well insisted is more like it that we change my plan from Oatmeal Raisin cookies to Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies with almonds. He loves chocolate!

For Breakfast we are having Blueberry Fruit and Cream Oatmeal with banana slices on top, green grapes that we got a great deal on and orange juice. A healthy and easy start to the day.

When we were in the store and my son realized we were making cookies it was all he could talk about until we made them. He always likes to help in the kitchen. Sometimes its just trying the ingredients for quality control of course. I have many First Street baking items already in my cupboards so I only needed to buy the Quick Oats and Chocolate Chips. I have always loved making cookies from scratch. As a teenager my family would ask me to make my awesome chocolate chip cookies, it always made me feel special to bake it for them. For my son I add the oatmeal for texture and the health benefits.

I made simple First Street Peanut Butter Sandwiches topped with green grapes to serve with my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip with Almonds Cookies. We had a mini picnic at the park benches in between my son playing in the splash pad and playground. We recently found this park and we love it. On the hot summer days we are able to have him play in the water. My son even shared some of our cookies with a few kids at the park. He wanted to pet their little dog and offered a cookie for a pet. He is a smart cookie!

When we got home from the park my son was exhausted from playing in the sun. While my son took a nap I planned out the dinner I was going to make for a few friends that were coming over to watch some movies. I am making Oatmeal Crusted Chicken and serving it with spinach couscous.

For my recipe I pulsed in the blender the quick oats and spices so the oatmeal would stick to the chicken and cook more evenly. My son was awake by the time I was ready to use the blender and loves to help push the button. Next I dipped the chicken in an egg wash before covering it in the oatmeal crust. I drizzled the top of the chicken with butter before going into the oven to help the oatmeal brown. You can use your favorite spice mix like I did or add the ones directly from the recipe. My spice mix contains all the spices on the ingredients list.

Oatmeal Crusted Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 cup regular oats
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon dried rubbed sage
• 1/4 teaspoon dried summer savory or parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 egg
• 4 Chicken Leg Quarters
• 2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine, melted

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450°.
2. Combine oats, salt, and next spice ingredients (salt through pepper) in a food processor or blender, process until oats are finely chopped. Place oat mixture in a shallow dish; place egg  in a medium bowl. Dip chicken in whisked egg, and coat in oat mixture. Place chicken in baking pan and drizzle butter over chicken. Bake at 450° for 45 minutes or until done.

We had a wonderful day spending time as a family enjoying meals, a day at the park and movie night with friends. My recipes we all planned around a simple ingredient that was on sale. Have you had a day with one ingredient as your meals inspiration?

You can see my shopping trip at Smart and Final by reading my Google+ story. Connect with Smart and Final on Facebook and Twitter.

Clever Creations "Chopped" Theme First Street Ice Cream Party Smart & Final

My family loves to watch Cooking shows, especially the ones that have competition in them. My husband worked as a chef when we first met and I am always trying to prove I make better food than him. We enjoy watching the show Chopped the most. Its a cooking competition where the chefs are given specific items that must be included in their dish and they can use the on site kitchen for other ingredients. They have to make a certain food such as appetizer, main course or dessert using the selected ingredients. I thought it would be a great idea for a Ice Cream Party theme. We like to make wild dishes with flavors that might not go together just to be experimental with food and we love Ice Cream, sounds like a perfect combination.

We shopped at Smart&Final for our supplies for our Clever Creations "Chopped" Party. We purchased First Street brand items since they are always a great deal.

For our required ingredients for our Ice Cream creations we have Bacon, Cayenne powder, Applesauce and Oranges. The creations made by each team must include all four ingredients in their dish for it to be complete. We were able to use other items we had in the kitchen to make our creations. I also had the First Street Products I purchased at Smart&Final along with a few other First Street brand items I already had in my cupboards.

We used a coin to flip heads or tails for who would cook first and get the pick of Vanilla or Chocolate Ice Cream for their dish. The men went first and selected Vanilla and planned out their creation. They decided on a Vanilla Tropical theme.

Their plan was to make a Vanilla Shake served in a Orange peel bowl topped with Cayenne Bacon.

Cayenne powdered Bacon for the topping

The shake included 3 scoops Vanilla Bean First Street Ice Cream, 1/2 cup Applesauce, 1 banana, 3 Oranges (saving the peel as a cup to be served in. Place in the freezer while making other items) 3 pinches of First Street Shredded Coconut, cinnamon and the juice from 2 additional oranges.

Blend the mixture on high for several minutes until there are no chunks

One of the Orange Peel cups did not have a flat enough bottom. Maybe next time we will cut just a bit off the bottoms to make it level.

Team #1 Finished First Street Ice Cream Creation Vanilla Tropical

The second team, the women, we used First Street Chocolate Ice Cream. We were creating a more rich dish with lots of chocolate and Cayenne powder. The original plan was to make bacon cups but the muffin tins had been used in the backyard for mud pies then tossed out so I had to quickly rethink my plan. We decided to make little bacon pedestals for the ice cream to sit on.

For the Chocolate Bacon Ice Cream Creation we decided to make a sauce to go over our chocolate ice cream served on a bacon pedestal. The sauce included 1/2 cup Applesauce, 1/4 cup First Street Chocolate Syrup, the juice from two Oranges, and 1 tablespoon of Cayenne powder. ( We added chocolate and cayenne dashes as it cooked for flavor adjustments.)

I placed the just cooked bacon in little cups to make the circle shapes. Do this fast or it will break.

Needed more chocolate as I tasted it. The aroma was great, like a chocolate orange candy mixed with Mexican Hot Coco.

The finished sweet and spicy Chocolate sauce

Next we plated our dish to be tasted against the other team's First Street Ice Cream Creation. I so wanted my team of the women to win so I could have bragging rights!

Chocolate Bacon with Sweet and Spicy Sauce topped with First Street Slivered Almonds

The two finished Smart&Final First Street Ice Cream Clever Creations "Chopped" Party dishes. Each dish had to include Bacon, Cayenne powder, Apple Sauce, Oranges and one flavor of First Street Ice Cream. The taste test started and we were impressed by the competition. Each team went a different direction with the flavors making it a tough call on the winner. Most of the kids did not like the spicy sauce on the Chocolate Bacon Dish but did love the Tropical Vanilla Shake Mixture. The adults agreed the Chocolate Bacon one was rich, spicy and a great use of the ingredients. But the sweetness of the Tropical Vanilla shake on the Cayenne Bacon was awesome!

The women were officially "chopped" from this competition. The winner ended up being the men's for the overall dish but we all agreed the women did have the best use of the flavors for the Chocolate Sweet and Spicy sauce.

A face covered in Ice Cream is always a sign of a great Ice Cream Party #IceCreamTreat

You can read my Google+ Story about my shopping trip to Smart & Final for First Street Ice Cream and other supplies for our "Chopped" Clever Creations Ice Cream Party.

*This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.
All opinions expressed in this shop are my own and your experience may vary. #Cbias #IceCreamTreat

My Love of Laundry: First Street Brand Vs Competitor Comparison

I love the smell of Laundry. Its fresh, clean and makes me feel happy. Its the one chore I don't mind doing. Maybe its because the machines do most of the work. I love seeing and smelling a fresh load of laundry. I like folding it too. Seeing colorful piles of neatly stacked clean laundry makes me happy!

My husband and I many times have had the discussion of store brand versus name brand when it comes to products of all sorts. Just the other day we had the Laundry Soap discussion. I said its nice to be able to have a light scent in the laundry. He said no it needs to smell like laundry soap to be clean. My reply was but it might not even be clean, just have a scent on it. I told him its like using perfume instead of taking a shower lol. We both laughed and I bought the soap I wanted.

To prove a point even further about the smell of laundry I went to Smart & Final to buy two types of laundry soaps and fabric softeners to see what my family would say. I purchased the store brand First Street and Gain laundry soap along with Bounce fabric softeners. I like to save money on items like laundry soap that are used often and I will need a lot of. Having a toddler boy he is always getting into something and using his shirt as a napkin.

Once I got home I made a plan to wash two blankets that are identical but each in separate soaps and softeners. I thought if my husband did not know which one was washed in what brand he would finally be able to know what I mean about name brand soaps.

 

The first load of laundry I washed was blue blanket #1. I used the First Street brand of liquid soap. I liked the scent of the soap. It smelled light and like clean rather than some that are flowery or over powering. It would be fun if the soap was orange like the bottle. Like how Gain has green soap and a bottle.  It made decent suds but as long as it gets clean I will be happy. For the price I am hoping the First Street will be better.

Next I washed the blue blanket #2 in the Gain liquid Laundry soap. I loved that the soap was green but it did smell pretty strong and I did not like that. There was a weird sweet to it. The suds were great, lots of bubbles. I thought maybe this might clean the blanket better since it was name brand but I was open to seeing the results of the comparison.

Now that I was washing the other blanket I put the 1st blanket in the dryer with the First Street Fabric Softeners. I like the scent of them. Its fresh just like it says Fresh Scent. I let my son help me load the dryer. He likes to be helpful. He will gather laundry and help me make piles according to color. I am lucky that he likes to clean and help me. He loves to use the trash can, putting things in the sink is a fun one for him too.

I bribed the dog with treats to guard the results of our secret comparison test while we went back inside to watch the Muppets movie with my son while we waited on the laundry to be done.

Next I took blanket #2 from the washer to put in the dryer with the Bounce fabric softener sheets. I smelled the blanket hoping it would not be as strong as the soap but it still sort of was. Bounce is definitely a strong scented sheet. They are useful to put at the bottom of a laundry basket.

The blanket test would be for scent and softness but I knew I needed to test stains too. My sons clothing is perfect for it. He is always a mess. I did a wash with each of the brands. The First Street got out chocolate and grape juice from my sons dark color clothing without fading them. I was great, looked clean and smelled clean. The Gain did get out stains from a light color pair of shorts but still had a strong scent to it. I prefer a clean smell rather than a distinct smell of a specific brand of soap. My husband and I laugh about Tide and our neighbors. I yell to him quick close the windows the "Tide" is coming in, we oddly find it funny lol. Any time they do laundry we have to shut our windows and the garage door. The scent of Tide coming from their garage is so overpowering its terrible.

Now that both blankets are done we started the Comparison test. We smelled them, touched them and even wrapped ourselves in them, for the full effect of a blanket of course. I thought the First Street ones smelled much nicer, more subtle and clean feeling. The Gain and Bounce ones seemed too over powering of a scent. The Bounce was softer but had a heavier feeling to the fabric like it stayed in the blanket more than the First Street ones. My son liked the Gain Bounce ones, which surprised me since he normally does not like things that smell flowery. I think it was the softness that won him over (Although at 2 he is not quiet a laundry expert like me lol). *Note: My son and I got a little itchy from the Gain soap after a few days of using them. We both have sensitive skin so I think it was just too much for us. It did go away once we stopped using the soap.

The real test was the secret comparison with my husband. He did not know which one was which like I did. I had him smell them and feel them. He told me he liked the First blanket I gave him better since it smelled fresh like it was clean rather than the Second blanket that just smelled like laundry soap. He picked the First Street one! I was so excited to tell him that I was indeed right that store brands can often be better than name brand. He was surprised and assumed the over powering one was the store brand.

After the comparison it looks like we will be making the switch to Smart & Final First Street and saving lots of money too.
 
Smart & Final is having a special promotion for their customers:
1. Visit any Smart & Final store from April 18 to May 15, 2012

2. Purchase any two First Street products and a unique code will print on your receipt

3. Enter your code here for your chance to WIN!

What can you WIN?

(1) One-year supply of First Street Pasta (based on a family of four)

(10) $100 Smart & Final SmartCash Card

(10) First Street Bag full of your favorite groceries (value over $50) plus a $50 Smart & Final Gift Card

You can read my Google+ Story about my shopping trip to Smart & Final for Laundry care products.

*This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.
All opinions expressed in this shop are my own and your experience may vary. #Cbias #CompareandSwap