Our Week in Meals #31

Hi, friends! Happy Sunday to you! We’re finishing up another week of summer vacation, which was full of peaches, pool time, and easy dinners. Ready for a quick recap 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 meals 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…

I went for a walk on Sunday morning after breakfast, which is definitely my favorite way to start the day at this time of year.

I also baked a batch of brownies that morning to take to a picnic in the afternoon,

and prepared my Oven-Roasted Sesame Broccoli for some updated blog photos. That’s one of our favorite side dish recipes, and it singlehandedly changed Gibbs’s mind about broccoli when he was a toddler (he has loved it ever since)…

It was a beautiful day,

Front yard photo courtesy of Keith!

so after lunch we packed up and headed to the pool.

Late afternoon Keith took Casey to his end-of-the-season soccer get-together, and then we all piled in the car to go to a cookout with friends by the river.

There was chicken, pork and hot dogs on the grill, plus plenty of other sides potluck-style. I brought along the brownies plus chips and a homemade salsa (which disappeared into the mouths of the children within about 5 minutes).

We spent our rainy Monday morning at home, recovering from a late night and a busy weekend. We all needed the downtime! After an early lunch I dropped the older two boys off at camp at Rounton Farm. It’s the perfect outdoor entertainment for this age group and a great way to add a little bit of structure to our summer schedule.

I stopped by my friend Amanda’s house on the way home, where she shared a dozen eggs from their chickens and a beautiful head of lettuce, which I used for our dinner that night!

We had the grilled and marinated London Broil that I originally made a few weeks ago when Keith was out of town, served in the form of steak salads. I included grape tomatoes, feta cheese, and bunch of herbs from our garden in the salad and finished it with my Buttermilk dressing (find the dressing recipe in THIS post).

We had biscuits and honey on the side to fill up my hungry boys. It was definitely my favorite meal of the week, and the London Broil recipe will be on the blog soon!

Tuesday was a day of driving around in the car! I know that other moms can relate to the feeling of Taxi Driver, and that was totally me on Tuesday. We started our day early by dropping Keith off at the auto shop for his routine car maintenance, and then headed to Graves Mountain Lodge for swimming lessons at the pool.

We came home for lunch, and then headed back on the road to Orange for the boys’ afternoon summer camp. A couple of hours later I did the camp pickup, Keith’s car pickup, and finally home for dinner. I was so glad that an easy dinner was planned when we walked in the door at 5:00 p.m.!

I served a pan-fried Creole Catfish with mac and cheese + salad + peas and corn. It was quick and good, with just 5 minutes of prep!

After a very busy day outdoors on Tuesday, the boys were ready for a quiet morning at home on Wednesday. While Gibbs and Casey laid low inside, Spencer and I watered the garden, drove the tractor, and checked out the peach trees.

Spence was very excited to show me the big peaches that are hanging from our trees! They’re finally ripe and we have TONS of peaches to use up over the course of the next week. I’ve got a peach crisp on the agenda!

While Gibbs was at camp in the afternoon, I squeezed in a walk with Mollie while the younger boys played. After Tuesday, Casey decided that he wasn’t a big fan of camp and that he preferred to stay home with me instead.???? Note to self: don’t spend money on Casey’s camp registration next year!

I served Italian Herb-Crusted Pork Tenderloin with couscous and salad on the side for dinner that evening. The pork was a freezer meal that I had put together a few weeks ago, soI just had to thaw it and roast it in the oven. I’ll be sharing the quick, 5-minute “recipe” in an upcoming post.

Keith worked late that night, so I made him a sandwich with the sliced pork, Swiss cheese, and tomato and broiled it in the oven to reheat it when he arrived. Eating in shifts happens a lot around here, whether I like it or not!

Thursday morning found us back at the pool for swimming lessons. The weather was beautiful, but the boys were FREEZING in the water! The younger two definitely bailed early and got out to put dry clothes on because they couldn’t stand it for the full 30 minutes. The pool is in the mountains and I don’t think it was more than 60 or 65 degrees at the time of their lessons! They’ll be happy for afternoon sessions next week when it’s about 95 degrees!

I took Gibbs to camp that afternoon, picked up our CSA order for the week, and then threw dinner in the oven as soon as we walked in the door at 5:00 p.m. We had another 5-minute freezer meal — this 4-Ingredient Baked Pesto Chicken.

I served the chicken with pasta and marinara sauce, a Caesar salad, and the true star of the show: this homemade bread from our CSA. My neighbor Jan (who lives on the farm across the street from us) organizes the weekly CSA and offered some of her fresh bread in this week’s order. I will never pass up a warm loaf of bread — if only you could smell this! It had cranberries, nuts, and a bunch of different grains. Gibbs said that it was the best bread he’d ever tasted!

My mother-in-law came for a visit on Friday, and she stayed with the younger two boys while I took Gibbs to camp. I had planned to get my car’s routine service taken care of at the dealer while Gibbs was occupied for the afternoon, but I knew that I didn’t want to drag Casey and Spencer along to the waiting room for a few hours. We were all thrilled when Carole came to the rescue and played with the boys all afternoon so that I could take care of the errands solo!

And while I was at the car dealer, guess who I ran into? My friend Mollie was also having her car serviced at the same time, because her older son was also at camp with Gibbs. Great minds think alike! I chatted with Mollie and took photos of adorable baby Miles while we waited for our cars.

Happiest kid in town!

After picking up Gibbs, we returned home for our favorite Friday night dinner — pizza (plus hummus and veggies)! I let the boys have “Movie Night” so that they could eat their dinner while watching the Star Wars film that Gibbs and his friends made at camp this week. Spencer loved it so much that he watched the movie on repeat all evening!????

I woke up early on Saturday morning so that I could take a walk/jog and watch the sun rise over the cornfields.

It’s always tough to capture the scenery on my iPhone, but these two photos show the view as I was walking away from my house facing East,

and this photo shows what it looked like on my way home with the sun behind me (facing West).

After feeding the kids breakfast, they ran outside to play and I took my breakfast out to the porch to supervise. This was a treat, so I snapped a photo (of course)! I had a homemade frappe (similar to this recipe),

and some waffles topped with a little bit of maple syrup and a peach that Keith picked while my waffles were cooking. Hello, summer!

I like to use the Kodiak Cakes Power Cakes mix (affiliate link) for the waffles, and then I just jazz it up with some vanilla extract, cinnamon and nutmeg.

While Keith took the younger two boys to the John Deere dealer to pick up a part,

Gibbs and I did the weekly grocery shopping. I also baked another batch of brownies to take to a party yesterday. We were headed to a Belmont Race party at the pool house at Mollie’s farm, so I brought along a salad and the dessert.

Mollie served fried chicken, collard greens, coleslaw, and pumpkin muffins for supper, plus all of the potluck-style dishes that the rest of us contributed. Such a fun way to spend the evening!

And that’s where I’ll leave it for now! I hope that you all have a wonderful week, and be sure to check in tomorrow for another easy dinner recipe! Talk soon!