Our Week in Meals #447

Good morning, and happy Sunday! This week included a trip out West, new adventures, and lots of delicious food. You’ll find all of the highlights from the past few days, along with each of our dinners, in today’s roundup of Our Week in Meals.

For those of you who are new to the blog, Our Week in Meals is where I share a little bit about what we’ve been up to over the past week — as it relates to our dinners each night. This series gives you a glimpse “behind the scenes” at some highlights from our life, shows you how I balance a busy schedule with feeding my family, and offers a few new ideas for your own weekly meal plan.

Now, let’s back up to last weekend…

Sunday was a full day of prep before our trip — church in the morning, a walk at Mollie’s farm after lunch, and a drive into Charlottesville to drop the dog off with my parents.

It was a beautiful day, but the skies were still smoky from the Canadian wildfires.

We had a friend over for cornhole and supper that evening. I made this easy chicken parmesan recipe (one of our few homecooked meals of the entire week!),

which I served with a green salad and the leftover lemon vinaigrette from the week before.

And for dessert, this berry Chantilly cream cake that Casey picked out at the Harris Teeter bakery while we were in Charlottesville (layers of white cake with cream and raspberry filling)!

Book time! In the spirit of “beach read” season, I breezed through Passion Project by London Sperry. This was an April Book of the Month selection, and I really loved it. Yes, it was predictable, but it had more depth than your average romance. It’s one of those novels that I couldn’t wait to pick up, and I just truly enjoyed. Easy and fun!

On Monday morning, we flew across the country from Virginia to Park City, Utah.

Our first stop after picking up our rental car was a late lunch at In-N-Out Burger — our first time visiting the popular west coast spot. Burgers, fries, and milkshakes!

I had a work conference at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley during the first part of the week, so the whole family came along and we stayed for a couple of extra days. What a gorgeous part of the country (and so different from our Blue Ridge Mountains at home)!

Spencer and Casey immediately found the hot tub on our balcony!

Keith and the boys had pizza that night, while I attended a dinner event at the Lodge. We had a large variety of family-style passed entrees and sides, all of which were incredible. I snapped photos of the first plate of salad and bread, as well as the standout Double R Ranch beef tenderloin with wild mushroom jus and buttermilk mashed potatoes. After that, I gave up on trying to capture everything with my phone! Highlights included Hawaiian ahi tuna with shoyu butter sauce, charred veggies and white bean cassoulet, and wasabi bok choy. Definitely not my standard Monday night fare!

Another beautiful day in Deer Valley on Tuesday…

The aspens are so beautiful, and you can still see snow on the top of some of the mountains…

Keith entertained the boys with a hike while I was in meetings that morning, and then we reunited midday.

Exploring shops in Park City…

…and pretzels, wraps, and sandwiches for lunch at the No Name Saloon (a recommendation from Keith’s friend who used to live there. It did not disappoint!).

We went for a hike near the lodge that afternoon.

It was fun to see so many new types of plants, soil, and birds. We even ran into a dusky grouse on the trail (thankfully no cougars!).

And back into Park City for dinner at Flying Sumo Sushi. Keith and the older boys were in heaven with all of the different options,

while Spence and I preferred the cooked entrees. This was my teriyaki salmon rice bowl…

…followed by ice cream at the Java Cow Creamery. This flavor included Heath bar, dark chocolate, and caramel!

We wrapped up my work conference with more meetings on Wednesday morning, and then I was free to join Keith and the boys by lunchtime. We got fancy sandwiches from Stacked — just look at this combo: “The Hoyt” included oven roasted turkey, house-made roast beef, bacon, pepperjack, lettuce, tomato, red onion, slaw, pickles, honey mustard and spicy mayo on the best crusty sub roll.

An afternoon walk at Jordanelle State Park with more stunning scenery and perfect weather…

…and dinner at the Irish pub in town, Flanagan’s. I had the wedge salad with blue cheese dressing and the Reuben (but sub turkey to make it a Rachel) with sweet potato fries. Here’s my favorite homemade Reuben (or Rachel) recipe if you’d like to make your own.

On Thursday morning, we left Deer Valley and headed down to Salt Lake City to play tourists for the day.

We visited the University of Utah’s campus,

checked into our rooms at the Grand America Hotel (what a gorgeous spot!),

and had lunch at Santo Taco, which was featured on Guy Fieri’s Diner’s, Drive-in’s and Dives. I had the chicken taco and the fried fish taco (both great!), but those homemade chips and salsa were the absolute best.

We walked up to Temple Square,

and also checked out the State Capital. We were so impressed with the clean, friendly city.

Dinner at R&R BBQ was awesome! This was the smoked turkey breast, hush puppies, and coleslaw. We also tried the pulled pork, ribs, and wings.

Friday was a long day of travel. We drove over to see the Great Salt Lake that morning, before catching our flight back to Virginia mid-day.

Meals included mediocre airport food (like a chicken sub for dinner at 9:00 p.m. on our second flight), which I didn’t have time to eat before boarding because we were rushing through the Charlotte airport to make our connection! I’ll spare you that photo…

On Saturday morning, it was so nice to wake up to that familiar warm, humid air of a southeastern summer.

We are not used to the dry desert weather!

The fog eventually burned off and it turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day — most of which I spent unpacking, doing laundry, and restocking our kitchen with groceries.

So much color popped in the few days that we were away!

It was also nice to be back cooking in my own kitchen after so much dining out! We kept dinner simple with these 15-minute, no-cook shrimp rolls,

grilled potatoes, and a Caesar salad (from a bag).

So there you have it, friends — another week of meals (and adventures!). We’re back to a more “normal” routine in the days ahead. Thank you for being here, and have a wonderful Sunday!