Our Week in Meals #380

Good morning, and happy Sunday! This week included a long weekend, a lot of kids’ sports, and some of the easiest suppers I could think of. You’ll find all of the highlights from the past few days, along with each of our 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…

I met three of my friends at Mollie’s farm for a walk on Sunday morning, picked up groceries for the week, and otherwise had a relatively quiet afternoon at home with Spencer and Gibbs.

Keith and Casey made it home from Casey’s soccer game in North Carolina by dinnertime, so I had a pot of beef and beer chili and a skillet of cornbread ready when they arrived.

Let’s chat about this week’s book! I recently finished Find Me by Alafair Burke — a suspenseful, twisty mystery about memory, secrets, and the power of female friendship. Definitely a fun page-turner!

Monday was a beautiful President’s Day holiday! Keith and the boys enjoyed a day off, while I had an outpatient surgery that morning in Charlottesville to fix a vein in one of my legs. Oh, joy!

Since I was on the couch elevating my leg and resting for most of the day, I put Keith in charge of dinner. He picked up take-out from Chili’s in Culpeper, which the kids were especially excited about. Chicken tenders, burgers, fries, and more! My chicken salad was good, too — spicy chicken, tortilla strips, avocado, pico, ranch, etc. Most importantly, I appreciated that I didn’t have to worry about anything in the kitchen.

Back to school and work on Tuesday!

It was another day of rest for me — foot elevated, working on the couch, with little breaks throughout the day to move around a bit.

I put an easy dinner in the Crock Pot so that it would be ready before Casey’s soccer practice: fiesta chicken, which we stuffed into flour tortillas for chicken burritos. We added rice, fresh spinach leaves, store-bought pico de gallo, cheese, and guacamole, plus tortilla chips on the side.

Teddy had an appointment at the groomer on Wednesday morning, and I had my post-op appointment in Charlottesville to get my stitches out.

Lunch date with Keith at Jersey Mike’s afterwards!

I stirred together a dump-and-bake Italian sausage casserole for an early supper, and then Keith took Casey to another late soccer practice.

Plus frozen garlic breadsticks and a green salad with pepper jelly vinaigrette on the side. I haven’t made this dressing in ages, but a blog reader reminded me about it and I had to make it right away. One of my forgotten favs!

I snuck in a morning walk with Ashley and our dogs before some rain rolled through on Thursday.

I kept dinner really simple and served it really early so that I could get Casey out the door for soccer again! We had garlic and rosemary broiled shrimp (a meal that can be prepped in advance and cooks in about 10 minutes), along with microwaveable rice, a baguette from Panera, and some steamed green beans with butter and salt.

It was a very rainy Friday!

I met Adria for a Pilates class in Culpeper once the boys were at school, ran a few errands in town, and stopped at a local furniture maker on my way home to order some new living room pieces.

Keith took Gibbs to a golf lesson after school, and then we had Southern meatloaf for dinner (using up some leftover cornbread), as well as mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. Comfort food!

And that brings us to the weekend!

Saturday included a walk in the morning, followed by an afternoon on the soccer fields watching Casey play in the rain.

We grabbed takeout Chinese for supper, including lo mein, sesame chicken, kung pao chicken, rice, and more.

So there you have it, friends — another week of easy dinners! I hope that you’ve found something new to add to your table in the days ahead. Thank you for being here, and have a wonderful Sunday!