Before signing off, I wanted to offer a peek into last week’s dinners as part of my Week of Weeknight Meals series.
I began sharing what one week of weeknight dinners looks like in our house one week every month a while back as a sort of throwback to the beginning days of this blog when I’d documents breakfast, lunch and dinner nearly every day. Like the early blogging days, photos in this post are snapped in real-time with no fancy food photography allowed.
Last week our meals included some long-time favorite blogger recipes, seafood, a stir fry and easy eats and hopefully something below will pop out at you and give you some meal ideas when you’re trying to figure out what to make during the week in the future!
Week of Weeknight Meals: March 2023
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Monday: PaleOMG Pizza Spaghetti Pie + Caesar Salad
This pizza spaghetti squash casserole has been a family favorite in our house since 2015. (There’s a reason it claimed a spot on my list of Blogger Recipes I Make Again and Again!) I made the casserole on Sunday night for dinner so Monday’s dinner was actually leftovers (I made a large batch) and we paired the leftover casserole with a caesar salad mix from a bag. It was a simple dinner which was necessary because Monday nights are soccer nights in our house and we don’t arrive home until close to 7 p.m.
On the boys’ plates: Grilled cheese, peach slices and a mix of baby carrots and cucumber slices
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Tuesday: Shrimp Edamame Ceviche with Avocado
The Whole Foods near my parents’ place in Jacksonville Beach sells pre-made shrimp ceviche and it is so fresh, vibrant and delicious. It’s also a fairly easy recipe to make at home and imitate which is exactly what I set out to do for Tuesday night’s dinner. I need to write down the exact measurements of this one to share with you guys because it was my favorite meal of the week! I ended up making another batch for lunch the next day as well and just kicked myself for not doubling or tripling the recipe from the beginning. In the mix: Shrimp, bell pepper, red onion, cilantro, edamame, cherry tomato, lime juice, pink salt and lots of avocado!
On the boys’ plates: Shrimp, edamame, buttered toast and clementines
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Wednesday: Marinated Chicken Wings with Baked Purple Sweet Potatoes and Green Beans
The marinade I used on the chicken wings we had for dinner on Wednesday night is the same one I shared in this blog post for my Easy Marinated Pork Chops! It’s such a simple one and since we almost always have the ingredients on hand, it’s a go-to for me for meat and fish alike. After marinating the chickens throughout the day, I baked them in the oven along with purple sweet potatoes and then I topped the sweet potatoes with butter and salt and served them with steamed green beans seasoned with garlic salt. It was a super simple meal but a good one!
On the boys’ plates: Annie’s organic chicken nuggets with ketchup, green beans, raspberries and yogurt
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Thursday: General Tso’s Chicken Stir Fry
This meal was born out of the fact that I used up all of our soy sauce/coconut aminos in Wednesday night’s dinner. I initially planned to make our favorite egg roll in a bowl recipe but when I went to add coconut aminos to the skillet, I remembered I used it all up the previous evening. I quickly pivoted and used some General Tso’s sauce I bought through Thrive Market in the skillet instead and it worked well! In the skillet: Ground chicken, edamame, carrots, cabbage, onion, garlic, toasted sesame oil and Kevin’s General Tso’s sauce!
On the boys’ plates: Scrambled eggs with buttered jelly toast, carrot slices and apple slices
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Friday: Salmon + Sauteed Kale with Daily Harvest Curried Brown Rice + Green Chickpeas
On Wednesday night, I participated in an evening Zoom call with a bunch of influencers and a guest chef through Daily Harvest. (Bachelor fans, there were some former contestants and even a former Bachelorette on the Zoom and I said to Ryan, “I wonder how I can privately DM them and fan girl a bit and he was like, “Umm, you don’t.” Solid advice, I suppose. I settled with texting my girlfriends a pic of the Zoom screen instead. Haha!) Anyway, we made dinner on the Zoom call using some of the new grains packages Daily Harvest sent our way. Even though I already ate dinner earlier on Wednesday night, I essentially ate a second round of dinner because the meal we prepared was so good! Luckily I made a double batch of the recipe and the leftovers were a welcomed meal on Friday evening, too, especially since Chase had a soccer game that night and we were on the lookout for something quick and easy.
The base of Friday’s nights (leftover) dinner was Daily Harvest‘s new Curried Brown Rice + Green Chickpea Grains and I you better believe I’ll be ordering this flavor from their grains selection in the future. It was SO GOOD. I’m particularly psyched about the new grains options from Daily Harvest because they’re larger and meant to serve multiple people. I’ve been ordering and loving Daily Harvest deliveries for years and have always wished they had more family-friendly options when I want to feed our whole gang in a busy night. This grains mix was incredibly delicious and tasted great served with sautéed kale and topped with salmon and a yogurt-lemon sauce made with full-fat Greek yogurt, fresh lemon juice and salt.
(I am not sure if my code still works, but in the past my code pbfingers would let you save up to $40 off your Daily Harvest order so it might be worth a shot if you’re interested and haven’t tried Daily Harvest before!)
On the boys’ plates: Quesadillas with bell pepper slices, apple slices and yogurt
Question of the Day
What was your favorite dinner of the week last week?
Any new delicious must-try recipes to share?
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We love the chicken marinade, and the rest of your meals look delicious, simple, and healthy too! THANK YOU for sharing the notes about what was on your boys’ plates. I got some great ideas for my picky eaters 🙂 This is one of the reasons I love your blog – you’re so relatable!
Thank you Kelly!!! I actually used to get a looooot of comments truly ripping me apart for serving my kids different meals (oooh the internet can be a lovely place) but it’s something I’ve let go of and we’re comfortable with because it works for our family and our kids are getting good food in their bodies one way or another. <3 Thank you for your encouragment!
I’m definitely looking forward to getting that shrimp ceviche recipe… looks like the perfect recipe to make when my girlfriends come to visit next month… we have sooo many dietary challenges! 😂🤣
Why don’t you serve the kids the same meals? Seems like a lot of work to make an entirely different meal.
I’ve talked about this in the past and used to beat myself up about it but it’s something we’re okay with now. This blog post from a registered dietitian does a great job summarizing my thoughts on all of this — https://www.theleangreenbean.com/tips-for-feeding-toddlers/
I love that you are honest about the boys not eating the same meal. I’ve had so many people tell me to serve the kids the same meals as us and it just does not work for our family. I also used to have a lot of guilt but my kids will not eat 80% of the foods we like unless it’s pasta in
Do you and Ryan always eat your dinner with the boys? We have a 10 month old and 2 year old and feel like if we try to eat a “family dinner” my husband and I are scarfing are food down as fast as possible before the kids are just done. Generally, we wait to eat ourselves until after the kids are in bed so we can enjoy our meal and eat slowly, but that gets late and eats up our free time too. Just curious if you’ve figured out a solution we haven’t! 🙂
We have a 2, almost 3 year old and she eats her food so fast we can barely eat with her. When I say she “eats her food” I mean doesn’t eat a thing and leaves the table. We’ve given up trying to keep her there, but she at least sits with us around 6. My husband and I do our best to eat normally and kind of model dinner to her. She usually eats something off her plate before bed though. We used to eat after she went to bed but it got too late! I’m hoping in the next year to two she’ll sit with us and eat haha.