Good Tuesday morning to you! I hope my fellow Americans had a nice Memorial Day. We decorated in red, white, and blue, made sure the girls knew that the holiday is about our gratitude to the American soldiers that gave their lives fighting for our freedom and not just the unofficial kick off to summer, but otherwise kept things really low key.

I don’t think we’ve ever had a Memorial Day weekend quite like this one, where it stayed 60 degrees and raining the entire time. Well, until yesterday late afternoon when a little sunshine poked through and we all ran outside as fast as we could to soak it up; Finley leading the pack.

But still, it was a nice weekend of pizza night and family time Friday, friends over for fun on Saturday, a trip to the movies Sunday, and relaxed day at home Monday where we actually got some things done that we needed to. I hope you had a nice weekend as well!

Monday

I used my last pack of “steak for fajitas” that we got from our cow share last summer, and I still don’t know the cut of meat it is, but it’s great for fajitas! I marinated the meat in this marinade, then cooked it stove top. Then I put it over greens with sauteed peppers and onions, black beans, avocado, sour cream, and salsa.

Tuesday

I thawed some Butcher Box shrimp and used them to make Better Than Take Out Pad Thai. The family really enjoyed this one, in part to the brown rice ramen noodles I used; such a fun texture!

Wednesday

My favorite hands-off easy dinner: frozen meatballs in the slow cooker with a Costco sized jar of Rao’s, served with spaghetti. My herbs I transferred from the countertop garden to my porch are doing so well, so I chopped up a a bunch of fresh basil, parlsey, and oregano to go on top.

Thursday

Quickly becoming one of my favorite Butcher Box items is their bone in pork butt. I season it simply then put it in the slow cooker for a full 12 hours. It shred beautifully and has great flavor, even with just salt and pepper as seasoning. Serve it over buttered rice with kraut or slaw and everyone can add their BBQ sauce of choice. SO good.

Friday

Family favorite- pizza night! Per usual, I made 2 batches of bread machine pizza dough. I topped them with pesto, pizza sauce, cheese, onions, peppers, and pepperoni. Kaitlyn cut part of the second batch into bite sized nuggets, then tossed them in melted butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar. Then we baked them and they were delicious!

Saturday

Saturday night we had friends over and had such a fun time sitting on the porch (with blankets because it was rainy and freezing) playing music trivia by playing top songs since the 1950’s and trying to see who could first guess the title and artist. It was so much fun and we stayed up way too late. For dinner we had a taco bar and since I had so many chips, guac, and bean dip, my dinner looked rather skimpy.

Sunday

I forgot to snap a picture of the Indian take out I picked up because I was too tired to cook. We all were! The kids went to bed at about 7:00 Sunday night and I think I made it to 9:30 or so, but wow, we all slept like logs that night.

Monday

We probably should have been cooking burgers, but lemon dill salmon with a garlic parmesan risotto and baby broccoli sure did taste good!

Resources

• Find all previous weekly meal plans here.
• Our meat comes from Butcher Box. I’ve used them for years and trust their quality and consistency.
• Fresh herbs brighten up every meal I have two countertop gardens that I grow them in: see the comparison between the two here. AHS will get you 10% off of Click & Grow.
• See what we spend each month on groceries here.
• Print off your own free weekly meal plan printable from the resource page.
• Daily Harvest offers easy frozen organic veggie-heavy heat and eat meals.
• You can find all my favorite kitchen tools here.