Our Week in Meals #515

Good morning, and happy Sunday! This week included a road trip, lots of rain, and a short week of school. 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…

After traveling on Friday and Saturday for Spencer’s soccer game, it was nice to have a quiet Sunday at home. I got out for a walk, put supper in the slow cooker, watched football with Keith and the boys, and took care of chores around the house.

On the menu: crockpot white chicken chili…

…and cornbread with cake mix. These two never disappoint.

Book time! This week I read a great mystery-thriller called Heart of Glass by Jennifer Hillier.

In this novel, two women are forced to revisit their teenage years when the serial killer convicted of murdering their best friend takes back his confession, and another body turns up. As the investigation unfolds, secrets they’ve kept buried for 25 years start coming to light, and it becomes clear that there’s a lot more to the original murders than anyone realized. It’s a dark, twisty thriller about friendship, betrayal, and the past coming back to haunt you…with plenty of secrets that kept me guessing until the end!

I got out for a misty walk on Monday morning once the kids were off to school. It wasn’t pretty, but I was very happy to feel some cooler fall-like weather…finally!

My late-blooming hydrangeas before the week of rain totally knocked them out for the season…

Mid-day, I ran a few errands in Culpeper and enjoyed my first pumpkin cream cold brew of the season. It was good! I love that you can add Starbucks items to your Target drive-up order (dangerous?!).

We had golf and multiple soccer practices on the agenda that evening, so I planned a really easy meal that we could serve at various times: chicken parmesan sandwiches,

with potato chips and a simple side salad.

Tuesday was another cool, wet day, which meant my morning walk with Ashley was canceled, and instead I spent a few hours in the kitchen working on a new recipe.

I also baked a batch of the kids’ favorite chocolate chip cookies…

…and had this soup + a slice of cornbread for a delicious “First Day of Fall” lunch.

I planned a packable meal for supper that night, since I thought we’d be eating out of a cooler at the soccer fields (ultimately, everything was canceled due to the weather).

We had an autumn-inspired chicken salad, which I made by adding diced apples and chopped pecans to the celery and cranberries in this Southern chicken salad recipe. Paired the chicken salad with a Panera baguette and an arugula salad. So good!

I was happy to get out for a walk and some fresh air on Wednesday morning in spite of the rain.

After my routine dermatology appointment, I met my parents for lunch at the Tip Top diner in Charlottesville (always a favorite). I had the Italian wedding soup with a salad (you can find my slow cooker Italian wedding soup recipe here if a homemade version sounds good!).

Before Youth Group, we had beef quesadillas for supper (using up some leftover Mississippi pot roast that I had stashed in the freezer). Quesadillas, nachos, and burritos are one of my favorite ways to stretch leftovers in an entirely new meal!

We paired the quesadillas with tortilla chips, pico de gallo, and homemade guac.

Thursday was a teacher workday, so the boys were happy to have a day off from school. Gibbs played 18 holes of golf with a few friends, while I met Mollie for a walk and made a quick stop at Yoder’s for groceries.

Casey and Spencer both had soccer practices, so we spent most of our evening in Charlottesville. I made baked meatballs with pasta,

and garlic roasted broccoli in advance, and then just reheated the meal at various times.

The sun returned on Friday, the air was cool and crisp, and we were treated to the most beautiful autumn day.

I went to Pilates in the morning with Adria and Ashley, and then Spencer and I were back on the road for another soccer trip that afternoon.

We headed south to Raleigh, NC, where we got out for a short walk and enjoyed an early supper at the Olive Garden near our hotel before his late training session.

I hadn’t been to an Olive Garden in years, and we really enjoyed it! I had the endless soup, salad, and breadsticks (of course!) and Spence had a chicken and pasta dish that he absolutely loved.

And that brings us to the weekend! We were on the soccer fields in Raleigh bright and early on Saturday morning for Spencer’s game.

Once it was over, we packed up the car and drove a couple hours east to Wilmington, where we stayed for the night. He plays in Wilmington this morning, and then we’ll wrap up our North Carolina weekend and drive back to Virginia.

We visited historic downtown Wilmington and spent some time at the riverwalk along the Cape Fear River. What a beautiful city! The old homes downtown were especially fun to look at.

For supper, we scored a table at Spencer’s favorite restaurant: Cracker Barrel (which happened to be right near our hotel)! 🙂 We shared a mountain of chicken tenders and about a zillion sides, including biscuits, salad, corn, carrots, green beans, fried onion petals, and pinto beans…and left very full and very happy.

So that’s where I’ll leave it for today, friends! 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!