Week of Weeknight Meals: July 2020

After an unintentional one month hiatus, I am back with the July 2020 edition of my Week of Weeknight Meals series! I began this series on the blog to give you guys a glimpse into what one week of weeknight dinners looks like in our house every month. I used to share my meals on the blog all the time and still enjoy highlighting my eats from time to time, especially when they’re snapped with my iPhone right before I’m about to dig in — no fancy food photography allowed!

As for what dinner looked like over here in July, there wasn’t any big theme or grand plan when it came to planning out what we ate, but everything we made last week was pretty darn tasty! Our meals included a variety of dishes from a comforting Instant Pot dinner and a simple one-pot chili to a long-time favorite throwback blog recipe (oh hey Easy BBQ Meatloaf) and more. I hope checking out pictures of our meals snapped in real time helps give you some dinner ideas if you happen to be a bit of a food rut or are just looking for some meal planning inspiration.

Week of Weeknight Meals: July 2020 

Monday: White Chicken Chili

For Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a subscription to Taste of Home magazine and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed perusing the pages of the magazine for recipe inspiration! This white chicken chili caught my eye because it looked very easy to make and healthy, too! I made a few changes, including adding frozen sweet corn and chopped carrots to the mix for a little extra texture, color and nutrition. Immediately before serving, after tasting the chili, I thought it was a little bland so I ended up stirring some shredded cheese into the chili and increasing the spices in the recipe a bit. Much better!

Tuesday: One Pot Greek Chicken with Lemon Rice and Lettuceless Greek Salad

Apparently dinner on Tuesday was a very “Healthy Slice of Life” kind of dinner since both recipes I made came from my friend Brittany’s blog, A Healthy Slice of Life! The one pot Greek chicken with lemon rice was right up my alley (I’m all about minimal dishes and clean up!) and Ryan, my father-in-law and I all inhaled this meal and went back for seconds. It was fabulous and flavorful! I made a couple of changes but didn’t veer too much from the original recipe. My changes included swapping chicken thighs for the chicken breasts, adding finely chopped Portabella mushrooms and zucchini (I used this handy contraption my mother-in-law sent my way for very finely dicing the veggies and it was awesome!) and increasing the amount of sun-dried tomatoes and olives. On the side, I served the lettuceless Greek salad I’ve raved about on the blog a number of times and loved the crunch of the cold, crisp cucumbers in contrast with our otherwise warm and hearty meal.

Wednesday: Easy BBQ Meatloaf with Curried Corn and Baked Sweet Potatoes

This throwback Easy BBQ Meatloaf recipe that I shared on my blog back in 2015 continues to be a family favorite in our house — and the pictures on the blog just got a much-needed refresh so check them out! The meatloaf is so simple to make and comes out great every time! I paired the meatloaf with baked sweet potatoes topped with butter and salt and curried corn. Ryan is obsessed with this curried corn and it could not be any easier to make! I just microwave frozen sweet corn with butter and then stir in lots of garlic salt and curry powder. Such a simple side dish but it’s one we’re enjoying a lot this summer!

Thursday: Instant Pot Chicken Curry

Oh my gosh you guys this meal was SO good!! It was, hands down, my favorite meal of the week and got rave reviews from Ryan, too. I’ve actually been doing some recipe experimentation around an Instant Pot chicken curry dish and nailed it two weeks ago. I made it again last week and it’s absolutely worth sharing on the blog, so stay tuned because this one will be coming your way soon! It’s veggie packed (the base is actually a mix of light coconut milk and smashed butternut squash — so creamy!) and full of flavor.

Friday: Slow Cooker Thai Peanut Chicken with Ginger Sesame Broccolini and Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

After lunch on Friday, I realized we had no real dinner plans on the agenda, so I went scouring through our fridge in search of inspiration. I saw some broccolini and built our meal around it because I knew immediately that I wanted to make my favorite ginger sesame broccolini, aka my favorite broccoli dish EVER and one that makes me want to eat a pound of broccoli in one sitting (seriously). We served the broccolini with a slow cooker Thai peanut chicken recipe I found on the Ambitious Kitchen blog. It wasn’t my favorite chicken recipe and I can’t say I’d recommend it, though Ryan thought it was okay. (The only change I made was to omit the red pepper slices because we didn’t have any on hand.) I think it’s the kind of chicken that is better in something like a grain bowl or on top of a salad, which is how it’s served on the blog where I found the recipe. On the side, we also had unpictured Hawaiian sweet rolls because I cannot get enough of those little pillows of heaven right now.

Question of the Day

What was the best meal you ate for dinner last week?