Our Week in Meals #472

Good morning, and happy Sunday! This week we celebrated Thanksgiving, cut down a Christmas tree, and started decorating for the holidays. 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…

Keith took Casey up to Fredericksburg for soccer all day on Sunday, so the other two boys and I were on our own.

Adria came over for a walk, and I baked (yet another) batch of chocolate chip cookies since Casey’s friends requested them. How can I say no to a group of hungry 14-year-old boys?!

That evening, we went to Charlottesville for the UVA men’s soccer game. They played UNC Greensboro in the second round of the NCAA tournament, and Spencer and his teammates did not want to miss it!

Since Keith and Casey were still gone, and we were at the game during dinnertime, we had pretzels, cheese dip, and other snacks and called it good.

The kids returned to school for a short holiday week on Monday, so I got out of the house for a quick walk before buckling down to knock out some work.

I dropped the cookies off at the high school for Casey and his friends, and stopped by Yoder’s for some essentials and granola ingredients on the way home. The holiday season is when this country market really shines!

We had a week off from kids’ sports practices, which was such a nice change of pace. Spencer was excited to make this snack mix to take to his grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving. He first made it in Home Ec class the week before and really liked, so he wanted to try it again at home. It was good (and very easy)!

We had 4-ingredient baked chicken taquitos for supper that evening…

…as well as a pan of Jiffy Mexican cornbread. Easy peasy meal!

Tuesday was the last day of “work” before the kids were done with school for the holiday break. I made the most of my time by meeting Mollie for a walk in the woods, logging onto a Zoom meeting for much of the afternoon, and prepping supper in advance.

We had stuffed shells,

plus a loaf of no-knead cranberry walnut bread and a green side salad. This overnight bread dough is so easy, and it’s one of my favorite homemade loaves ever!

Wednesday started off foggy and cool, but the sun quickly came out and it turned into a beautiful, warm afternoon.

An early walk up the road, and a visit with our neighbor…

Back home, I baked a loaf of one-bowl pumpkin bread to add to the Thanksgiving bread basket the following day, while Keith and Gibbs got out for a round of golf and the younger boys played soccer.

Look at this photo of my niece Abby, who was preparing my chocolate pudding pie for their Thanksgiving feast in Florida. She did such a great job!

Once the boys were back, we had an easy dinner of crescent roll stromboli, plus potato chips and cut-up veggies with dip.

Thursday was Thanksgiving!

My mom graciously offered to host this year (and to do most of the cooking!), which was such a treat.

We headed south to Nelson County that morning, ate bbq for lunch at my parents’ house, and then Keith and Gibbs played a round of golf while the rest of us decorated a tree and got out for a walk before supper.

My mom made all of the classics: turkey, gravy, sausage stuffing, green bean casserole, apple and butternut squash casserole, my grandmother’s sauerkraut with bacon, and cranberry sauce.

My contribution was the bread basket: dinner rolls and pumpkin bread,

plus a dessert tray to accompany my mom’s pumpkin chiffon pie. This included Ashley’s cinnamon pecan cookie bars, chewy oatmeal cranberry cookies (recipe coming soon), chocolate chip cookies, and easy pecan pie bars.

Friday’s big outing was a trip to Louisa County to cut down our Christmas tree at Claybrooke Farm…

…followed by subs at Joe-Joe’s Super Heroes in Mineral before heading back home for the evening.

Dinner looked like sausage pesto pasta, a green salad with red wine vinegar dressing, and leftover rolls from the night before. My boys love this easy meal!

And that brings us to the weekend! We spent Saturday at the house, taking care of chores and putting up the Christmas decorations.

The younger boys put a couple of ornaments on the tree, and then quickly lost interest and went back outside to play. Gibbs and I finished the rest!

I had the night off from the kitchen since we went out for Gibbs’ birthday dinner (a day early). He picked the BBQ Exchange in Gordonsville, so we piled our plates high with pulled pork, mac and cheese, hush puppies, onion rings, coleslaw, cornbread, and more. It’s always delicious.

And there you have it, friends — another week of easy meals! I hope that you’ve found something new to add to your own table in the days ahead. Thank you for being here, and have a wonderful Sunday!