Our Week in Meals #345

Good morning, and happy Sunday! This week included a lot of rain, visits with family, and a quick trip up to Maryland. All of the highlights from the past few days, along with each of our dinners, are included 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…

Sunday was Father’s Day! We celebrated Keith with a couple of gifts in the morning, my friend Adria came over for a walk, and we took the kids to a park in Culpeper.

Dinner was a menu of Keith’s favorites: grilled beef tenderloin,

along with baked potato wedges, a Southern Caesar salad, and a basket of dinner rolls.

Plus my easy key lime pie for dessert! I used a more traditional graham cracker crust that night, rather than the saltine crust shown here. Both are delicious!

I finished a very good book that evening, too: Barbara Kingsolver’s newest, Demon Copperhead. Wow, what a moving story. Her writing is always beautiful, and the subject of this novel was incredibly emotional — heartbreaking, uplifting, funny, and eye-opening. It takes place in southwest Virginia, so I really enjoyed reading about the struggles of life in Appalachia, the bonds of kin, and this part of our state that in many ways reminds me of Madison. I can’t recommend this one enough; just have some tissues nearby!

After a walk up the road with Keith on Monday morning,

the boys and I met our friends at the pool for a swim. That mountain water is still freezing, and it was definitely not crowded!

Keith grilled Hawaiian kielbasa kabobs for supper (an oldie-but-goodie!),

which we paired with white rice and a simple green salad dressed in Dijon vinaigrette.

Tuesday was pretty rainy and gray, so I got work done at home in the morning, and then we all had hair cuts in the afternoon. Not necessarily a “fun” day, but a productive one!

I made Crock Pot chipotle chicken bowls for supper, including chopped lettuce, rice, corn, beans, pico de gallo, salsa, tortilla chips, and guacamole.

On Wednesday, we drove south to my parents’ house in the Rockfish Valley of Nelson County.

It was rainy and cool, so the boys couldn’t swim in the lake or play golf like they had planned, but they sure enjoyed hunting for golf balls and snake skins in the creek.

We had chicken and cornmeal waffles for supper, along with a fruit salad. Instead of frozen chicken tenders, I used reheated Chik-Fil-A chicken strips, which we picked up at the drive-thru in Charlottesville as we headed home that afternoon. They were great!

Yet another cold, rainy Thursday! I had a Zoom meeting in the morning, picked up a grocery order, and made flatbread pizzas for lunch.

Desperate to get the kids out of the house, we decided to check out a new arcade in Orange that afternoon. I really dislike arcades, but I’m willing to make exceptions when the weather is SO bad. Of course, the boys loved the air hockey and pinball!

Back home, I served a ground beef and baked bean casserole with cornbread for supper, along with a green salad and the leftover Dijon vinaigrette from earlier in the week.

While Friday was still cloudy and gray, we finally got a little bit of a respite from the rain.

I went out for a short walk in the morning, and then spent time testing new recipes in the kitchen.

Gibbs had a golf lesson that afternoon, I took the boys to ride their bikes at the high school,

and we picked up funnel cakes at Yoder’s for snack on the way home.

These boys are making the most of their summer break!

I prepared a pan of easy shrimp scampi for supper,

which we served with pasta in pesto sauce, as well as sauteed zucchini and a loaf a garlic bread.

My brother’s family flew into Maryland from Florida for a lacrosse tournament this weekend, so we drove up there to watch my nephews’ teams play on Saturday.

It was a long day (and a lot of time in the car), but always worth it to see everyone. I was so glad that Keith snagged this one photo of all of the kids together in the hotel room!

We made it back to Madison in time for a late dinner. Keith grilled hamburgers and hotdogs, which we paired with cut-up veggies, potato chips, and ranch dip.

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