Our Week in Meals #421

Good morning, and happy Sunday! We welcomed December with some cozy winter recipes and a new book. 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 kicked off the month of December with advent calendars and a Sunday morning walk.

Keith and the boys went to see the new Gladiator movie around lunchtime, while I opted to stay home and enjoy a quiet house while working on our Christmas cards.

For dinner that night, Keith grilled beef tenderloin since they were on sale at the grocery store for half off! This is always a family favorite, and our go-to Christmas entree.

We paired the steak with Aunt Bee’s 3-ingredient easy potato casserole, my canned green beans from last summer, and a house salad with candied pecans.

Shall we chat books? Switching gears completely from last week’s holiday romance, I tackled a much more serious beast this week: All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. This beautifully written story about friendship, love, heartache, and mystery was a little bit slow at the start, but I flew through the second half. It was heartbreaking and hard to read in many parts, but also incredibly moving. It reminded me a lot of one of my other recent favorites, Demon Copperhead.

Brought my friend Chip some carrots on Monday morning…

The rest of the day was largely devoted to work in the kitchen. I tested one new recipe, and updated the photographs for an old favorite.

For dinner that night, I made a simple baked rigatoni. Plus steamed broccoli and store-bought garlic knots on the side!

It was only 22 degrees when I walked with Mollie on Tuesday morning! Thank goodness for warm coats and fleece-lined leggings…

I ran a couple of errands after my walk, including my weekly grocery stop at Yoder’s, and jumped on a Zoom meeting that afternoon.

For supper, we had bbq meatballs…

…alongside a dump-and-bake vegetable casserole with rice.

I went to a golf lesson on Wednesday, and otherwise stayed close to home to get work done at the computer.

I have appreciated the break from late-night soccer practices in Charlottesville, since the fall season is officially over. Instead, we can eat dinner together at a reasonable hour…

That night I made sheet pan chicken fajitas, which we served with flour tortillas, rice, chips, salsa, and guacamole.

Ashley and I tried to walk our dogs together on Thursday morning, but the wind was so strong we had to cut it short. Teddy almost blew away! You can see we had a very light dusting of snow that morning, too…but it definitely didn’t stick around.

The rest of my day included a few errands up in Culpeper, work, and golf lessons for the younger two boys after school.

My dad captured this shot of a beautiful winter sunset that evening…

I was fasting for a medical procedure, so I wasn’t able to eat dinner that night. Instead, Keith picked up pizzas for the boys!

I had my doctor’s appointment on Friday morning, got a panini sandwich for lunch from Yoder’s afterwards, and watched a couple of Hallmark Christmas movies by the fire that afternoon. Not bad!

Gibbs had a golf lesson that night, and then I served a really easy, cozy dinner once everyone returned home: 30-minute tomato basil soup with grilled cheese sandwiches.

And that brings us to the weekend! Keith and the boys played a round of golf on Saturday, and I spent a few hours cooking and taking photos.

We went to this Chili’s in Culpeper for dinner that night, where we had all of the usual favorites — fajitas, burgers, chicken fingers, chips and salsa…

…and the star of the show, Casey’s chocolate lava cake!

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