Value is important to us here at Price Chopper & Market 32, which is why we are serving up three meals with five ingredients or less! These recipes are perfect for a busy school night, or a family dinner.

Speaking of family dinners, September is Family Meals Month. Check out our latest blog here!

Spaghetti & Meatballs

1 container Market 32 Meatball Mix

1 jar Prego Pasta Sauce

1 box Ronzoni Spaghetti

Broccoli Crowns

Shop Spaghetti & Meatballs here!

Chicken Tacos

1 package Market 32 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast

2 avocados

1 Old El Paso Taco Kit

1 Jar PICS Salsa

1 bag PICS Shredded Cheese

Shop Chicken Tacos here!

Sheet Pan Chicken

Market 32 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast

Market 32 Baby Potatoes

Market 32 Whole White Mushrooms

PICS Marinade or PICS Dressing of choice

Shop Sheet Pan Chicken here!

 

Want to change it up? Check out this delicious Chicken & Watermelon Salsa Tacos Recipe for a fun take on the taco recipe above!

This week's meal planning items!

Ellie Wilson

MS, RDN,CDN, FAND

The world our children are growing up in is busy, noisy, distracted and overwhelming. Parents and caregivers work so hard to maximize their children’s activities, manage phone and computer usage, and reach for the best new ways to nurture balanced, happy, and healthy children and teens. The secret to making it all work may not be new at all – the humble family meal and eating more meals and snacks together has been shown to bring an abundance of benefits to families, one bite at a time!

Family Meals Deepen Relationships and Build Social Skills

Research has time and again shown that family meals have a unique and surprising power to support a range of holistic, positive skills and abilities that allow our children to become their best selves. Family meals literally make families stronger. Eating together fosters family closeness and togetherness, supports intellectual and early literacy skills, and develops language and social skills. In fact, a specific finding of a recent survey about family meals uncovered that over 75% of the families polled described family meals as an ideal setting to have and teach respectful interactions, a critical skill builder that requires this unique time and safe setting to discuss concerning topics and develop problem solving competence.   

Family Meals Improve Mental and Physical Health

Eating more family meals together has huge benefits for health. Research shows that families that eat together more often enjoy more fruits and vegetables, have more healthful weight and other positive health behaviors, such as more physical activity and better sleep habits. All those elements facilitate better mental health across the lifespan – those smart habits carry over into adulthood and sustain good health through the inevitable ups and downs of life.

Family Meals Bring Fun to the Family Table!

It is not hard to make eating together a fun time that everyone looks forward to! Have a picnic indoors, play ISPY, have a “kid’s choice” meal each week, or have your teenagers pick the music to play in the background. Family meals can be a time to share family stories, talk about the favorite thing that happened that day, tell a silly joke, and build food skills through favorite family or culturally relevant dishes or holidays. When parents and caregivers “play” with their children, mealtime becomes a treasured time you can all look forward to!

How about our busy, noisy, distracted lives? It can be hard to get regular meals on the table!

We get it, and we are here to help! Every week, we share ideas for meals that can be made from the items on sale in the ad – we call them Value Meals,  because we know time and budgets are stressed, and inspiration can be hard to muster at the end of a busy day. They don’t have to be perfectly healthy, or pretty, or complicated – the secret sauce is literally your time eating together, a practice that nourishes you all.  Try to get one more meal together each week, and watch your children bloom!

#FamilyMealsMovement

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Family Mealtimes Matter Saturday Event!   fmm-logoSeptember is National Family Meals Month ™, and we are celebrating in stores throughout upstate New York with our friends from Cornell Cooperative Extension and Eat Smart NY! Information, education and some great recipes will be shared – check out Pizza Hummus for a fun twist on a smart snack! We have fresh, delicious meal solutions all around the store that can help you spend more quality time with your family, and reap the many benefits of family meals. Children who eat more meals with their family have better grades, social skills, talk with their parents more and enjoy better health – that is a pretty powerful package for something we know you already love to do! Join in the fun on Saturday 9/16 at one of the following New York locations from 10 AM to 2 PM, or grab the handout at the Guest Services desk in your store all month long. #FamilyMealtimesMatter #NationalFamilyMealsMonth #eatsmartny #Timebetterspent http://www.eatsmartnewyork.org/ https://www.pricechopper.com/family-mealtimes-matter?q-family-meals-matter= September 2017 Family Mealtimes Matter Event Locations: Ellie Wilson, MS, RDN Family time is precious and rare in our busy lives these days, but there is a big opportunity ensure your family is stronger and your children have the skills they need to navigate in our distracted, over-scheduled world – it is the simple, old-fashioned family meal that can nurture and protect them in very significant ways. We have been highlighting some easy power bowl meals all month to help you with thefmm3 time/budget/#everyonelikesit part – now we have some fun tips on the table talk part. The simple act of chatting around a meal gives your children better social skills, and builds communication connections. Given how busy we all are, it is sometimes hard not to use that time to discuss chores, or grades, or sports. Those conversations are important, but maybe we can inspire you to finish with them rather than start. Help build your children’s confidence and emotional intelligence with some simple questions and conversation starters. Tip – have everyone put whatever phone/device they use on silent, and leave them in a basket in a different room until your mealtime clean-up is done. Play games when they are little, and get different topics going as they get older. Check out these ideas from our  Pinterest board!