Our Week in Meals #396

Good morning, and happy Sunday! This week included a Florida vacation, family time, and a hike in the mountains. 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…

We were still on vacation in Florida last Sunday. After a couple of days with my brother’s family in Orlando, we drove our rental car south to Miami for a conference that I was attending during the first half of the week.

But first, an 8:00 a.m. swim in my brother’s pool…

…and lunch in Winter Park with the cousins.

We arrived at our beautiful hotel in downtown Miami around dinnertime, dropped off our luggage, and headed over to South Beach for dinner.

It was funny to see my boys’ reaction to the city…a far cry from the mountains and farms of Madison County, Virginia!

We ate delicious Mexican food at Abuela’s Tacos, including chips, guac, and these fresh and flavorful veggie tacos with peppers, onions, mushrooms, corn, zucchini, crispy Brussels sprouts, and more. It hit the spot on a very warm evening…

Let’s chat about this week’s book! While on vacation, I finished a fun beach read that everyone seems to be talking about at the moment: Carley Fortune’s latest novel, This Summer Will Be Different. If you’re looking for an entertaining summer escape, this is the book for you! I loved the Prince Edward Island setting and all of the many references to Anne of Green Gables, too…

Monday morning on Miami Beach!

And an afternoon at the hotel’s pool…

I had a dinner event to attend that evening, so Keith and the boys were on their own for burgers and ice cream.

Meanwhile, I was treated to a 10-course meal at Maty’s, a Peruvian restaurant that just won the James Beard award for the Best New Restaurant in the US! I loved trying so many unique dishes, including this tuna with beans and lime,

the fried corn cake,

oysters, ceviche, salads, pickles, fries, whole fish, and a sweet potato donut — just to name a few. It was definitely a special dining experience!

I was busy at my conference again all day on Tuesday.

When done with my meetings, I joined the boys for some indoor mini golf on a rainy evening…

…and dinner at Cafe Americano. The pizza was good,

but the star of the show was this “sunshine wedge” salad with roasted corn, pico de gallo, bacon, cotija cheese, cilantro, radish, pickled red onions, and jalapeño crema. Loved it!

This pretty much sums up our entire Wednesday:

Our early morning flight out of Miami was delayed due to bad storms, so we missed our connecting flight in Charlotte, NC. It all worked out in the end…we just had a very long day of sitting in airports and arrived home later than planned.

We picked up oh-so-glamorous drive-through roast beef sandwiches, curly fries, and milkshakes from Arby’s for dinner on our way home from the Richmond airport. Options were limited, and this got the job done!

Thursday was entirely devoted to unpacking, many, many loads of laundry, and re-stocking the kitchen with groceries.

But first — a morning walk!

I made “egg roll in a bowl” for supper, and served it over cooked white rice. This was a good way to get a lot of veggies into my boys after a vacation filled with donuts and chocolate (and not much produce)!

After a short walk on Friday morning, I got back to work in the kitchen — testing a new recipe and canning a batch of green beans.

My parents came for lunch and dropped off Teddy, who they had been taking care of while we were away.

We had hot dogs with coleslaw for lunch, plus potato chips and fruit salad.

And Teddy resumed his usual routine of following the boys around and harassing everyone for attention…

Dinner that night was a Mexican-themed mix of leftovers that I had stashed in the freezer and wanted to use up. We had soft tacos using a little bit of ground beef taco meat from a previous meal, as well as pulled pork nachos made with some leftover Dutch oven carnitas. Plus guacamole, salsa, and corn on the side.

And that brings us to the weekend! Keith and Gibbs went to a car show on Saturday morning, while I stayed home with the younger two boys and photographed a couple of recipes.

After lunch, there was some cornhole in the yard…

…and later that afternoon we headed out for a hike on the Hawksbill trail along Skyline Drive here in Madison. This was Keith’s request for Father’s Day weekend!

We stopped for an early supper at Rappahannock Pizza Kitchen on the way home. The weather was gorgeous, so we enjoyed our pizzas and Caesar salad on the picnic tables outside. Even Teddy could join in!

So there you have it, friends — another week of dinners! I’m looking forward to more homemade meals in the days ahead. Vacation is great, but there’s no place like home! Thank you for being here, and have a wonderful Sunday.