Our Week in Meals #299

Good morning, and happy Sunday! It was another hot summer week around here, complete with pool time, books, sports, and an orchard visit. All of the highlights, along with each of our dinners, are included in today’s roundup of Our Week in Meals!

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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…

There was rain in the forecast for most of Sunday, so I got the boys out for a swim with their buddies at our friends’ pool while the skies were still clear that morning. Bonus — I got a couple of hours of chatting time with Mollie while we supervised!

Back home, I fed three very hungry boys pizza quesadillas for lunch, and then spent a rainy afternoon taking care of chores around the house.

Keith had been away for a long weekend in Atlanta with his brothers, so he offered to pick up dinner as he traveled through Culpeper on his way home (smart man!). Of course we took him up on that offer, and the kids requested Chili’s — also not a surprise. We had takeout burgers, fried chicken, this Santa Fe Chicken Salad, and their chips and salsa for all…

I used some of the ripe orchard peaches that I got last week to make our favorite Easy Peach Cobbler (and I mean, easy!) for dessert. Plus vanilla ice cream on top!

Monday morning was cloudy and cool, but the sun came out and it got HOT quickly.

We spent a couple of hours at an orthodontist consult for Gibbs, I jumped on a Zoom call that afternoon, and I walked down to my neighbor’s farm to pick up some corn before supper. She put up 48 pints of corn last week, and still had more than enough ears leftover to share with us!😮

I stirred together a batch of pimento cheese to have on hand for easy lunches this week,

and also made a few jars of refrigerator dill pickles to use up some of the cucumbers that seem to be taking over my kitchen.

We had Duke’s homemade mac and cheese for supper, along with fresh corn on the cob, sliced ripe tomatoes, and a Caesar salad. Quite possibly the perfect summer meal!

I have a few more good books to share this week! First, The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty. I always find her novels to be entertaining, and this one was no different. Nothing life-changing, and not as good as Apples Never Fall or Nine Perfect Strangers, but a fun mystery-thriller that will soon be made into a movie. Here’s the quick summary from Amazon:

At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read…

My darling Cecilia,
If you’re reading this, then I’ve died…
 
Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not only the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. And then imagine that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive…
 
Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. But that letter is about to change everything—and not just for her. There are other women who barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they, too, are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.

I also read Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand, another author who always offers a great summer beach read!

And finally, In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear. This is book #13 of 17 in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series. While it wasn’t my favorite, these novels are always well-written page-turners. If you like historical fiction and mysteries, definitely check out book #1!

A sunrise walk with my neighbor on Tuesday morning…

…followed by some time at the golf course. Gibbs had another lesson, while I played putt-putt with the younger boys.

Let me tell you, it’s tough to beat a tomato sandwich with the addition of pimento cheese for lunch during the month of August!

We went to the pool in the afternoon, and made it home in time for an early supper before Casey’s first soccer practice of the fall season. On the menu: bbq chicken wraps, paired with the dill pickles that I made the day before, and potato chips.

Gibbs requested biscuits for breakfast this week, so I made a batch of 3-ingredient buttermilk biscuits bright and early on Wednesday morning. Served with apple butter, of course!

The rest of the day was a boring combination of doctors’ appointments, including a follow-up at the orthodontist and a routine checkup at the dermatologist. We had lunch at the Chik-Fil-A in Charlottesville, though, so it wasn’t all bad!

Dinner was a quick and easy pan of 5-ingredient cherry tomato pasta, along with garlic bread and salad.

A very hot and steamy Thursday morning walk…

I made a loaf of zucchini banana bread for breakfast, which doesn’t last long around here. Definitely one of Casey’s favorites!

We spent the afternoon at our friends’ pool — another attempt at staying cool…

For dinner, we had Mexican shrimp tacos with fresh tomato salad, creamy slaw, and tortilla chips with guacamole.

I started my Friday morning with an early walk up the road with my neighbor, Barbara. Other than that, we stayed home all day so that I could focus on some work that needed my attention.

The weather was unbearably hot, and thunderstorms passed through that afternoon, so the kids were happy to lay low indoors for the most part.

When the skies cleared, Keith grilled hamburgers for supper…

…which we paired with a summer corn salad, baked beans (from a can), watermelon, and some more of my homemade pickles.

Then it was Saturday!

We ran errands, took care of laundry and other house work, and baked a loaf of no-knead bread to have with lunch.

Late afternoon we drove over to Jenkins Orchard near Sperryville. They’re stocked with tomatoes, corn, peaches, damson plums, apples, and more at the moment, so we loaded up! It’s one of my favorite local “hidden” gems.

Plus dinner at Rappahannock Pizza Kitchen afterwards! These wood-fired pies are another family-favorite, and I was glad for the night off from the kitchen. My boys are happy with a classic cheese pizza, but I like to pile on the toppings. This one had local pork sausage, caramelized onions, braised greens, mushrooms, and peppers. So good!

There you have it, friends — another week of easy meals. I hope that you’ve found some new inspiration for your own summer table in the days ahead. Thank you, as always, for being here!