I’m coming at you guys today with a peek into what one week of weeknight meals looked like for our family in April. I began this series as a way to throw things back to the origins of this blog when I used to share our dinners every single day of the week. Now, through this series, I share what one week of our weeknight dinners looks like once a month. No fancy food photos are allowed and all pics are snapped in real time!
During this particular week, we had a lot of easy eats which is pretty much normal around here. You may also be able to tell I bought a bulk pack of chicken thighs from Costco when you see our meals below. Haha! You’ll see a decent number of chicken dishes, pasta, breakfast for dinner and a couple new-to-me food finds we tried and enjoyed.
Week of Weeknight Meals
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Monday: Marinated Chicken Thighs with Shishito Peppers and Lemon Quinoa and Butternut Squash
I swear I use the marinade I shared in my blog post about Easy Marinated Pork Chops just as often for chicken as I do for pork. It’s versatile and delicious and worked perfectly on the chicken thighs I made for dinner Monday night. After marinating them all day long, I cooked the chicken thighs in the air fryer and served them with blistered shishito peppers cooked in olive oil with a little garlic salt and lemon quinoa and butternut squash from a bag of Daily Harvest grains. So good!
On the kids’ plates: Applegate Farms organic chicken nuggets with ketchup, bell peppers and raspberries
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Tuesday: Sausage and Spinach Frittata with Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Breakfast for dinner! We had some leftover pork breakfast sausage from the weekend so I used it to make a frittata with spinach, onions, bell pepper and shredded cheese. I also prepared a few sweet potatoes in the air fryer and them mashed them up with some salted butter as a side dish.
On the kids’ plates: Scrambled eggs with sausage, fresh spinach leaves with ranch for dipping (aka their version of “salad”) and strawberries
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Wednesday: Marinara Chicken Thighs with Palmini
Wednesday’s dinner was an interesting one. I placed chicken thighs on top of thinly sliced onion and grape tomatoes tossed with minced garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. I then poured some Rao’s marinara sauce on top and sprinkled everything with parmesan cheese before baking the chicken thighs. We then enjoyed them with more marinara sauce on top of Palmini, a pasta-like dish I bought from ALDI that is made with hearts of palm. It intrigued me and while it was nowhere near the same thing as pasta, it was still quite tasted smothered in marinara. If you’re expecting it to be a pasta substitute it would be a big disappointment but if you’re looking at it as a way to enjoy hearts of palm in a new way, it was pretty good! I liked it enough to buy again but might think of a new way to serve it because marinara sauce makes me want real pasta.
On the kids’ plates: Grilled cheese, carrots with hummus for dipping and clementines
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Thursday: Instant Pot BBQ Pulled Chicken Thighs with Green Beans and Mashed Sweet Potatoes
On Thursday night, I prepared a batch of BBQ pulled chicken thighs in the Instant Pot by following this recipe from Meaningful Eats. There’s clearly a reason the recipe has so many positive reviews! It was delicious and I’ll absolutely make it again. Along with the BBQ chicken thighs we had steamed green beans seasoned with garlic salt and leftover mashed sweet potatoes from the big batch I made for Tuesday night’s dinner.
On the kids’ plates: Quesadillas with green beans and blueberries
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Friday: Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Meatballs and Marinara
When I don’t know what to make for dinner, spaghetti is always a winner! It’s something we almost always have on hand and since I already had a large jar of Rao’s marinara open from Thursday’s dinner, it was a no-brainer. While I boiled the pasta, I threw some frozen meatballs into the air fryer and then stirred them into the marinara once they were done cooking. The meatballs were actually a new-to-me find from Costco. They were the Amylu Paleo spinach and red pepper meatballs and we all liked them!
On the kids’ plates: Spaghetti noodles without sauce (kids, man), meatballs with ketchup for dipping, cucumber slices and a clementine
Question of the Day
What was your favorite meal of the week last week?
Any new must-try recipes to share? Links welcome!
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My favorite thing about this is that the kids dipped the meatballs into ketchup!
It took me a while to convince my kids that ketchup isn’t all that different from spaghetti sauce…and yet, they still won’t eat a tomato as is.
Are all 3 kids picky eaters?
Hi, just curious if you even ask or offer your kids tastes of what you’re eating. I know you have no fears about making completely separate meals, but how do you balance that with trying to introduce new foods? Also, it just seems like a lot of extra work for you to make completely different meals every night.
I would hardly say your kids are picky eaters lol each meal is balanced with protein and fruits/veg. I appreciate seeing what you serve as it gives me ideas for nights I’m making something spicy or something I know the kids will not eat because I’d definitely rather provide an alternative for them then have dinner time be a stressful battle.
I love that you keep it real with your separate kids’ meals! My kids are super picky and if we tried to make them eat what we eat either they would starve or we’d have a really boring diet. I do encourage them to try what we’re eating (pasta with meat sauce) but then offer them what I know they will eat if they don’t like it (plain pasta). They are also very strong willed and usually exhausted and starving by dinner time so it’s not worth it to me to have a battle every night. Wish my kids would eat quesadillas! They hate them! They recently discovered pulled beef tacos on crunchy shells and they love that so maybe something new to try?
Wondering if you’d do a post on just kid meal ideas? Although maybe it might be best not to because there are sooooo many opinions and judgements on what people decide to do for their kids unfortunately….
I love Palmini! My husband is diabetic so I try to cook low-carb when I am making family meals. I find it to be more of a pasta equivalent than zoodles. They also make “lasagna” noodles which I have used in lasagnas and also tuna casserole.
I’m trying this recipe next week for the first time. Will put some easy protein on the side.
https://www.yummytoddlerfood.com/green-pasta-sauce/