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.

Disney Planes in Theaters Now! #DisneyPlanes

PLANES is in theaters now,  check out some of the great fun and engaging content on Disney.com’s FlewTube  http://disney.com/FlewTuben.  Including:

• Planes Trailers & Clips
• Paper Airplane Tutorials
• Features on Remote Controlled Flyer enthusiasts
• Introductions to parts of a plane
• Flight-related Disney legacy content

We are hoping to get to the theater this weekend to check it out. My boys love CARS so I know this will be a hit too! How about you, have you or are you going to see the movie?

Chocolate Zucchini Bread



The ingredients (check out the zucchinis, the are from our very own garden!)

I love the way shredded zucchini looks!

Mixing it up.

Chocolate!!

        

All ready to bake.

Ingredients:

2 (1 oz) squares of unsweetened chocolate
1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips
3 eggs
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of vegetable oil
2 cups of grated zucchini
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
2 cups of all purpose flour

Directions:

Preheat oven at 350. Grease two 9x5 loaf pans, be sure to coat it really good! Combine all of the chocolate and melt it in the microwave, just enough so it is slightly melted and smooth.

In a large bowl combine, eggs, sugar, oil, vanilla and grated zucchini, mix well. Stir in the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Next, stir in the bowl of warm melted chocolate. Last, pour your batter into the loaf pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes and enjoy!!!

*I melt all of the chocolate together, I don't care for the chocolate chips to stand out when I bit into my treat. To me it tastes better when the chocolate runs all the way through, that is why I melt all of the chocolate together, but you can leave out the chocolate chips when you melt the semi sweet and add them in whole.

Missing My Pup

We were at the mall looking around at clothing for the Fall and Summer clearance when my son spotted this display of Boo Dogs. He told me "Mom I miss my puppy Kosha". It made me so sad that he misses our dog. She was not a puppy but to him she was. The two of them were the sweetest pair of boy and dog. As soon as we get a home of our own the first thing I am getting him is a black lab puppy. I can buy him a million dog stuffed animals, and I do lol, but nothing is like having a real dog. I miss that sweet pup too.

We were updated by the people who opened their hearts and homes to our dog and she has found a permanent home with a woman who loves her. They said the woman was feeling lonely and not much made her want to go out and live life but having a dog as sweet as she is made this woman feel loved and a purpose. When I read the email update I was at work and tears started streaming down my face. I am happy someone loves Kosha as much as we did and she is living a good life.

Ancestry.com and New England History #ad

*This is a sponsored post.

I have always been fascinated with History. I love watching the history channel and reading books about people from the past. I remember in elementary school when we had a project out find out our ancestry. I loved asking family members about our heritage. When I was in school there was no internet to google that type of stuff. We are lucky that now we can use places like Ancestry.com to find out about past family members and famous people in American history. 

Ancestry.com is featuring New England History over the last 400 years. See the picture below for fun facts and famous people from New England. I found it fascinating that as big as Maine is there are not many people in that state. Many profound influential people of change in American History are from New England. Philosophers, abolitionists, civil rights activist, presidents, founding fathers and authors all from the same area rich in American history.

I wonder more about my family and who we are related to. Do we have any famous people in our family tree? I can search immigration records to see when members of my family came over to the USA. Being a Mom I am also curious about my husbands side of the family for my son. I have heard some great stories about their American adventures through the Midwest and Texas to California that I would love to document through records.