Quick and Healthy Southwest Chicken

Fall is really here. You know how I know? Not just that school is in full swing and homework riddles abound and books and binders are on every surface of the kitchen and living room…. Nope. It’s the daily hectic sports schedule. Someone has a practice, a clinic or a game Every. Single. Day… of the week. This is why I have to have a few quick go to meals that are still balanced and healthy ready to go. If you have a busy family schedule too, you’ll want to add this Quick and Healthy Southwest Chicken to your bag of tricks. Even if your schedule allows you to spend an hour or more in the kitchen preparing a meal and you love cooking, this is a meal that has all kinds of color and flavor for those nights you do want something simple, yet delicious.

This post is sponsored by Foster Farms® Simply Raised, which is locally grown in California and 

the Pacific Northwest. The opinions expressed are my own.

Ingredients:

3 Foster Farms Simply Raised Thin Sliced Breast Fillets
¾ cup of your favorite salsa (I prefer organic salsa)
¾ cup organic frozen corn
1 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
1 avocado, sliced
¼ cup sour cream

Directions: 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Take the thin sliced breast filets and lay flat in an oven dish prepared with either avocado oil or grapeseed oil. Spoon ¼ cup salsa on each filet. Next, layer ¼ cup frozen organic corn on top of the chicken and salsa. Put dish in oven for approximately 30 minutes. At the last 5 to 10 minutes, sprinkle some of that mild cheddar cheese on top of each filet. Continue to bake for the remaining minutes. This is what you want it to look like when you pull it out of the oven:

Top each fillet with your favorite southwest flavors. I personally like to add avocado whenever and wherever I can! The flavors of fresh, locally grown chicken, salsa, sweet corn, cheese and avocado come together like one big happy family.

I like to keep it simple when determining what sides we will have, remember we’ve been running around getting kids to soccer practice and such. A can of refried beans and some organic tortilla chips and fresh made guacamole is what we opted for this time around. If you’re making your own guacamole and you really want to hit a home run, be sure to get locally grown produce, and organic if at all possible. The flavors are more vibrant and you will taste the difference. Buying local 

supports your local farmer and it’s a good lesson for our kids in how we support our community! Did you know that Foster Farms chickens are delivered from local ranches in 48 hours or less?

This meal takes just 35 minutes start to finish, including prep. The trick is the Thin-Sliced Breast Fillets. If your family is like mine and likes the tender and juicy white meat, you know it can take a bit longer to cook the breasts compared to other chicken parts…. Which is why I look for the Thin-Sliced Breast Fillets from Foster Farms. I prefer to get the Foster Farms Simply Raised, with no antibiotics, hormones or steroids. AND if you live in California or the Pacific Northwest, you’ll be glad to know that these chickens are always raised locally! I think feeding my kids food that is free of hormones and antibiotics is a worthwhile thing to champion. Buying products that are local cuts down on your carbon footprint which means I’m teaching my kids about being environmentally responsible. While we’ve been on a mission to choose healthier foods at the grocer, I’ve also been keeping my eye out for items that are local. To me local means fresh and fresh is always better. 

All Foster Farms fresh chicken products are American Humane Certified.

Do you have a busy after school schedule that has pushed you to come up with some quick and healthy meals? I’d love it if you share in the comments below because I’ll be putting together a roundup post for just that sort of thing and I want to include your awesome quick and healthy meals.

In the meantime PIN THIS one so you have it for those nights you need to pull a good meal together quickly!

This post is sponsored by Foster Farms®, the opinions expressed are my own.

Farm Fresh to You Brings Goodness to Your Door

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Farm Fresh to You as part of 

the Mom it Forward Blogger Network. All opinions

and writing are my own. I only share things I believe to be of value.

Organic goodness in a box as fresh as it can get was delivered to my door before 8 a.m. last Friday. I was so excited to send the kids off to school and have fresh produce on my doorstep to put away without having even gotten out of my pajamas! "This is going to be a good day" I thought.

Just look at all the beautiful bright produce that came in this box...

Later when I decided to slice up one of the heirloom tomatoes that was so bright and plump, making it hard to resits, I could hardly believe how excited my mouth was about the simplicity of a tomato. It is true what they say, after having true fresh heirloom tomatoes, you just never want to go back to conventional tomatoes. My daughter has a thing for tomatoes too... but she usually likes to sprinkle a little salt on hers. When I told her to try a slice of the tomato from our Farm Fresh to You box she wasn't even thinking about reaching for the salt.

The only thing bad about these heirloom tomatoes was how juicy they were.... you know cuz that just makes a mess! But that's when you know it's good... you know what I'm talking about. I hope our next box has more heirloom tomatoes because Amberly and I will just sit at the table and savor bite after bite. I laugh when I think that I didn't like tomatoes as a kid!

Before I forget, and while you're equally excited about these luscious tomatoes, I want to share the Refer a Friend program at Farm Fresh to You. When you set up an account with them and share your code with a friend, your friend saves $10 off their first order and YOU get $25 credited to your account. Pretty sweet, right? So of course I am sharing my refer a friend code with you knowing you'll enjoy it just as much as I have. JZAN4279

I used their easy to use website to customize my box, opting for the No Cooking Box. I know myself well enough and our busy family schedule that I'm not in the mindset to be cooking up a bunch of vegetables to add to the dinner table right now. And it was the perfect option for us because we had things to make a nice dinner salad, a healthy after school snack and even some fresh mango for dessert!

Truly Fresh Dinner Salad:

Ingredients:

1 head of romaine lettuce, leaves torn into bite size pieces
1 large heirloom tomato, sliced
1/2 cucumber, sliced
1 avocado, pitted and diced
Your favorite salad dressing  (I need to experiment with making my own)

Enough for all 5 of us to get a good serving size.

I have to tell you that we've been growing accustomed to salad in a bag from the grocery store and I had forgotten how with just a few ingredients, count them, there are 4, you can make something that is so good, good for you and adds color to your plate! The cucumber was better than any cucumber I've purchased from the store and it didn't have that wax finish. Organic is the way to go, and Farm Fresh to You gets it to you when it still has that "just picked" goodness.

I've been browsing their YouTube channel and love hearing what other customers have shared, which made me dig further into the website and find all the amazing resources Farm Fresh to You offers. They've really thought of everything to make it super easy, especially for us busy moms who want to feed our kids the very best.

Another reason this works so well for me is that I can select items that I do NOT want in my box. For example, I'm not too keen on papaya so I simply mark that I don't want it in my box. And I can update this any time! Like I'm always teaching my kids "taste buds change every 10-14 days!"

To say we've had a bit of a heat wave here in San Diego would be an understatement.  One day after school when it was particularly warm I was excited about the cantaloupe I had put in the fridge and was ready to be cut open. But they weren't going to have just cantaloupe by itself... although they wouldn't mind that in the least, it is one of their favorite foods. Over the summer we've created a variety of parfaits which got me thinking about using our new parfait glasses.

Sweet Melon Surprise!

Ingredients:

1 medium size cantaloupe, diced
3/4 cup organic vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup organic granola

Directions:

In the bottom of your dish place your diced cantaloupe. Top with a dollop of the vanilla yogurt. Sprinkle with your favorite granola.

Yields 8 servings. Pictured you see 4. We enjoyed it so much we all had seconds!

We still have some of the bell peppers and cauliflower and carrots which I plan to just cut up and add to the table as a veggie platter that will double as a bright colorful centerpiece. Two for one right there, no need to buy fresh flowers when you've got a colorful assortment of produce to showcase.

Remember, Farm Fresh to You has an amazing refer a friend program and I'd love for you to use my code  JZAN4279so you can save $10 on your first box. Full disclosure, they will kindly credit me with $25 after you place your first order for helping you get hooked up to them. And you can then refer a friend and get exactly the same benefit! Nope, you don't have to be a blogger to enjoy this refer a friend program. I feel good about referring you to give then a try and know you'll be excited about the difference in the freshness and flavor. They've named it perfectly, it really is "FARM FRESH TO YOU".

Save #MoreMinutes During Back to School at Great Clips

Kids seem to go back to school earlier and earlier don't they? Mine return the middle of August. That's like right around the corner! So I'm already trying to figure out how to save more minutes during this back to school season in order to fit it all in.

Good thing there's Great Clips online check in! We gave this a test drive and found it was not just useful, but super easy. Amberly's hair needed a trim, she's been complaining of her bangs falling in her eyes. She was constantly sweeping them to the side. Here's a before picture:

Because of juggling summer schedules I hadn't made an appointment to get it done at the children's salon we typically visit. You know, calling a place to make an appointment can be an unforeseen time suck.... have you ever been put on hold? That is just one reason I liked using the online check in with Great Clips. Plus, I could see there was a zero minute wait time at our nearest salon. Winning! And because Great Clips is everywhere (check store locator) I didn't have to drive across town to get to one. All of those minutes add up quick!

Amberly was all smiles with her new cut:

Amberly got a great cut at a great price (children under 10 are $12 - prices may vary by location). So not only did this save us time, it saved me money too!

The way I see it I could either throw those minutes away doing things the old way or I can bank those minutes and spend them where they count.., on creating family memories. We came up with 10  ideas on what do with our saved minutes:

1. Look up a new smoothie recipe

2. Make s'mores

3. Have family game night

4. Make popcorn for family movie night

5. Pack a picnic dinner to take to the park

6. Make funnel cake

7. Have a water gun fight

8. Walk to our neighborhood Little Free Library

9. Go star gazing

10. Take a hike

We ended up having family game night!

You can join in the fun #MoreMinutes campaign too. Simply find a Great Clips near you, take a selfie and post it on Instagram or Twitter use the #MoreMinutes hashtag sharing what you'd do with a few extra minutes.

It's as easy as 1, 2, 3....

Great Clips will be performing random acts of kindness now through Sept 11 2015. I'm looking forward to following the hashtag and seeing what people come up with and what Great Clips does for its customers! You can learn more about this fun back to school campaign here. 

What would you do with a few more minutes?

Here's what a few kids came up with:

$25 VISA Giftcard

Thanks to Great Clips for sponsoring today's story and encouraging me to try Online Check-In to save my family #MoreMinutes to enjoy the stuff we love!

S'mores Yogurt Parfait

The boys had a day off from soccer and Amberly had softball practice so it was a perfect opportunity to let the boys in on the fun of making their own yogurt parfaits like their sister did the other day. Since I've had s'mores on the brain after creating our S'mores 21 Ways Summer Bucket List I thought we would try making a campfire inspired treat.... S'mores Yogurt Parfaits. When I told the boys what we were up to, they got excited! And because they had a mission to help me pick out the items at the grocery store, they were easier to manage. Hmmm. Go figure. If I had only known it was that simple to keep them focused on our agenda inside the grocery store. I'll have to remember that the next time.

We needed more Mountain High Yoghurt since we used up all of what we had. Because it makes for a great healthy after school snack and perfect protein addition for breakfast, it can go fast! We also needed some chocolate chips, but not any chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips. 

It was close to dinner time when we got home so I told them I was going to let them make a mini version of the real thing as this was our trial run. They were happy enough with getting to have dessert before dinner!

First I had Owen crumble some graham crackers.

Next I prepared the s'mores bar.

Then I moved everything outside. Easier clean up that way!

I decided I'd put the yogurt in their parfait cups to get them started.

Then it was time to get this parfait started!

They were so focused on their creation that I couldn't get them to look at the camera. That is until they were mid bite. Ha!

After they finished, I made my own parfait. Full size! I think the total serving size was still just 8oz..

You can probably tell by the empty cups what we thought of these S'mores Yogurt Parfaits!

Kids love treats. Moms like feeding kids healthy foods. So with our mini S'mores Yogurt Parfait I think it was a win-win! 

We've been using the Mountain High Yoghurt in a variety of ways; to make ranch dip, in place of sour cream in baking and of course in our parfaits. Amberly is planning to re-purpose the containers too since she is very environmentally conscious. 

Thank you for checking out Mountain High Yoghurt. Doing so makes it possible for me to continue blogging. Be sure to download your coupon on their site HERE.

For more simple inspiration and healthy recipes visit Mountain High Yoghurt on their Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages!

Literally as I'm typing this my husband wants to know why he didn't get a tasty treat. I got up to make his S'mores Yogurt Parfait and it took me less than a minute. It doesn't get any simpler than that! And way healthier than those other late night snacks we tend to reach for, right?

Be sure to browse some of those deliciously tempting S'mores inspired treats here.