Our Week in Meals #346

Good morning, and happy Sunday! This easy summer week was full of fresh produce, lazy pool days, and plenty of sunshine. 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…

After a long day in Maryland on Saturday, we used Sunday as a day to play catch-up on house chores (mowing, laundry, etc.). I met my friends Adria and Barbara for a morning walk,

and then Keith took Gibbs and Spencer to the pool. Casey stayed home to help me make a pitcher of sun tea, get our groceries for the week,

and pick peaches in the yard.

Keith grilled baby back ribs for supper,

which we served with the kids’ favorite mac and cheese, sliced summer tomatoes,

a pot of sweet and spicy collards,

and the best blueberry muffins (which I thawed from the freezer). Classic summer meal!

Let’s chat about this week’s book! After the emotional rollercoaster of Demon Copperhead, I was ready for a lighter, fluffier book. I loved The Hating Game by Sally Thorne — a predictable yet entertaining romantic comedy about workplace enemies. This was very well written and fun to breeze through, making it ideal for your next vacation.

Monday morning!

I went for a walk before the kids needed breakfast, and then we packed up our cooler for a day at the pool.

That afternoon, I took advantage of the piles of fresh peaches on our counter and made a peach galette for dessert that evening. It’s basically a quicker, more rustic peach pie — made even easier with help from a store-bought pie crust!

Keith grilled chicken shawarma for supper (you can also roast the chicken in the oven), which I served with French fries, pita bread, tzatziki sauce, hummus, pickled red onions, lettuce, and tomato.

My friend Adria brought me a big bag of vegetables from her garden last weekend, so I used her cucumbers to make my mom’s marinated cucumber salad, and roasted her pattypan squash to have on the side. The benefits of friends with green thumbs!

It was a nice, relatively cool Tuesday after thunderstorms rolled through on Monday night.

I had a couple of errands to run up in Culpeper, so the boys tagged along and we stopped at Chipotle for lunch. Back home, we took a short hike in the woods while the weather was a bit cooler.

Gibbs requests pork schnitzel for dinner almost every week, so I finally got around to making it again for supper that evening. We paired the pork and mushroom gravy with rice and blistered sugar snap peas.

Wednesday started with a morning walk with Ashley and our dogs. I took photos of a new salmon recipe (which we enjoyed for lunch), and then the boys and I spent the afternoon at the pool.

Ground beef nachos were on the supper menu, along with homemade guac, store-bought pico de gallo, leftover pickled red onions from earlier in the week, and this frozen street corn that I found at Target the day before. Fun for a change!

And for a simple summer dessert, the boys made ice cream sundaes. Casey actually took this picture of his bowl, so I “borrowed” it to share here. Hah! Raising middle schoolers is so fun! He used Ben & Jerry’s Gimme S’more ice cream and all of the toppings — including this Magic Shell that I picked up at the store this week. So nostalgic, and the kids thought it was…totally magic. Highly recommend for an easy treat this season!

The smoke from the Canadian wildfires resulted in very poor air quality here in Virginia on Thursday, so we did our best to stay indoors. I worked in the morning, and then the kids joined me for some local antiquing after lunch.

They love a good treasure hunt as much as I do, and the shops in Ruckersville are full of all of the vintage dishes, cast iron, and copper that you could want!

Maybe they just wanted to tag along for the ice cream at Jack’s Shop Kitchen?!

Spencer had soccer in Charlottesville that evening (in spite of the air), so we had an early supper before Keith took him into town: country chicken and biscuits, along with a kale Caesar salad (using this easy, creamy Caesar dressing) to take advantage of the fresh kale from Adria’s garden. Always delish!

Another hazy sky on Friday morning…

I took Gibbs to a golf lesson…

…and made a loaf of chocolate zucchini bread with Casey. So decadent and delicious!

We went for a swim at the pool that afternoon, and then made homemade pizzas for dinner. We kept it simple with classic cheese pizzas, but added fresh basil on top and plenty of this delicious pizza oil. We’ve also used the pizza oil drizzled on fresh sliced tomatoes with salt, pepper, and basil — also very good. Summer Fridays!

Plus a side of sauteed zucchini! Can you tell that I have an abundance of zucchini at the moment, thanks to the generosity of friends and neighbors? These one-bowl muffins and this zucchini pie are also on my to-make list!

I went over to Mollie’s farm for a visit on Saturday morning.

Our summer schedules and travel have us out of our regular routine, so it had been awhile since we’d caught up!

The rest of the day included errands and house work, before we went out to dinner at Timberwood Grill in Charlottesville. We had fried calamari, burgers, chicken fingers, steak salad, chicken parm, and my pastrami reuben sandwich — all tasty, and the service was great!

So there you go, friends — another week of easy dinner ideas! I hope that you’ve found some new inspiration for your own table in the days ahead. Thank you for being here, and have a wonderful long weekend and 4th of July holiday!