Our Week in Meals #121

Good morning, and happy Sunday! March in Central Virginia is a confusing time of year — one minute it’s sunny and spring-like, the next minute we have 3 inches of snow on the ground! We made the most of a crazy week, and I’m showing you all of the highlights, along with our easy 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…

It rained and sleeted all day on Sunday, so we stayed indoors as much as possible (definitely not ideal in a house full of 3 young boys and an energetic puppy!).???? I spent the morning baking a Derby Pie, prepping dinner for the night, and photographing a new recipe.

We ate Chinese leftovers for lunch, and then headed up to Culpeper for swimming lessons. Plus donuts and decaf coffee for an afternoon treat!

Shortly after, Keith took Gibbs to his indoor soccer practice while I stayed home with the younger two. In addition to laundry, I spent some more time in the kitchen — preparing coleslaw to have with supper…

and slicing up strawberries for the week ahead. This batch looked promising, but they were completely flavorless! Can it be spring yet?!?!

As a side note, the blueberries and raspberries that I’ve bought recently have been really good!

Dinner that night was an easy recipe that I know everyone will always enjoy: Slow Cooker Turkey Sloppy Joes! I actually substituted ground beef for the ground turkey this week, because I knew that we’d be having ground turkey in a different meal on Tuesday.

We ate the sandwiches with the coleslaw that I had prepared earlier, as well as potato chips on the side.

And of course…dessert! This is seriously our family’s very favorite pie, because the filling tastes like a cross between a soft-baked chocolate chip cookie and a pecan pie. So rich, and so delicious!

I walked up the road to my neighbor’s farm on Monday morning to pick up a loaf of her bread, along with a few cheddar scones and a few cranberry scones. Jan sells her baked goods (and her produce during the growing season) to local restaurants, so we’re very lucky to have easy access to these delicious treats as well.

Her wholegrain bread makes the best toast for breakfast!

The baked goods smelled so delicious, that Teddy was jumping up and barking at the table! ????

Apparently a little girl in Spencer’s class brought chocolate pudding for snack that day, because he arrived home at lunchtime and immediately asked for “pudding like Lexi’s.” I didn’t have any chocolate pudding in the house, but we whipped up a box of vanilla that was stashed in the pantry.

The verdict? He was not impressed. In fact, I believe that his exact quote was, “it’s not as good as ice cream.” I agree! ????

Casey had basketball practice that evening, and Keith was working late, so we ate dinner in shifts (as usual).

I served Shrimp Creole with rice, which was easy to prep ahead and then just reheat as necessary. The recipe will be on the blog next month, but in the meantime you can try this Dump-and-Bake Shrimp Etoufee with Rice (a similar Cajun-inspired dish)!

It was sunny and chilly on Tuesday morning, but really cold, so I was happy to meet my girlfriend at the gym for an early yoga class once the kids were at school.

There’s snow up on those Blue Ridge Mountains!

Gibbs stayed after school for a math club meeting, but otherwise we didn’t have any sports practices that night…so we actually ate dinner as a family at a regular hour!

We had One Skillet “Egg Roll in a Bowl,” which continues to be a very popular recipe on my site. Have you tried it yet? If not, I hope that you’ll make it soon!

This is a really light meal, so I served it with brown basmati rice that I made in my rice cooker in order to fill up my hungry crew. This is the only brown rice I’ve found that Keith and the boys will actually eat!

I headed up to Culpeper on Wednesday morning for a strength class at the gym, followed by errands in town. I had to return a pair of shoes to Zappos at the UPS store, which just happens to be next door to a Starbucks.

Since I’m rarely anywhere near a Starbucks, I just had to treat myself! This was the Iced Cinnamon Cloud Macchiato, and boy was it good! I loved the creamy, foamy cinnamon sugar top with a caramel drizzle!

It was really cold that evening — in fact, so cold that Gibbs’s outdoor soccer practice was cancelled — so a cozy soup dinner sounded appealing.

I thawed a batch of my Ham and Bean Soup that was stashed in the freezer, which we enjoyed with a side salad and my neighbor’s Cheddar Scones and honey. Delicious, easy, and quick, since Casey had basketball practice shortly after we ate…

I spent Thursday morning photographing recipes while Spence was at school and Teddy was at the groomer. When Teddy came home, Spencer’s first response was, “he looks so ridiculous!” That scarf came off immediately…????

We took advantage of a sunny day and played outside quite a bit.

Gibbs had soccer practice that evening, so we ate an early dinner before he needed to be at the fields: Baked Eggplant Parmesanserved with spaghetti and marinara, as well as a Caesar salad.

I met my friend at the gym for a Body Pump class on Friday morning, and by the time I got home the snow was sticking to the ground. Not good!

It actually continued snowing all day (which we didn’t expect), and we ended up with a few inches by that evening — enough to cancel Gibbs’s first outdoor soccer game on Saturday!

By Friday night, I usually don’t feel like cooking too much for dinner. Instead, I went with one of our favorite easy seafood suppers: Fish n’ Chips!

We had this fish with these potatoes and steamed, buttered green beans on the side.

Saturday morning started in the best way: a filling breakfast of eggs, cranberry scones, fruit and a latte!

It was still cold and snowy outside, but the last weekend of basketball wasn’t cancelled, so we had an early 8:30 a.m. start for Casey’s championship game.

My parents joined us to watch them win, and then to cheer on Spencer at his final practice.

We returned home for sandwiches at lunchtime, followed by frosted brownies that my mom brought us. Gibbs wanted me to take an “action shot” of him biting the brownie. ????

Spencer joined me for a grocery store run that afternoon, and then we all went out to dinner in Culpeper. We tried to eat at Glory Days first, but the wait for a table was way too long for our hungry crew, so we ended up across the street at Chipotle instead.

A steak bowl, chips and salsa, and lemonade — not a bad Saturday night, in my opinion! ????

And that’s it for now, friends! I hope that you’ve found a few new meal ideas for your own week ahead. Thanks so much for stopping by!

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