Night One: On this night I cooked a brisket in my instant pot, shredded it up, and served it over chips with a can of ranch pinto beans, a homemade white cheddar cheese sauce, tomatoes, end green onions. Everyone loved this and it was filling.

Night Two: We had leftover chicken from another meal, so I chopped it up finely, added a little mild salsa, and used it as a taco filling. Matthew requested steamed white rice, so that’s what we didn’t instead of the more expected Mexican rice as a side.

Night Three: It sounds weird to have soup when it’s 105 degrees outside, but our family loves Chicken and Dumplings!

Night Four: My husband was gifted a blackstone grill and wanted to try it out, so he made us the most amazing smash burgers! I paired it with watermelon, chips, and pickles I made about a month ago. This is summer eating at its finest!

Night Five: We had to be somewhere quickly after dinner, so I did a one-hour Italian bread and some pasta with meat sauce this night.

Night Six: Breakfast flatbread, grapes, and potatoes. Another Blackstone recipe! Kinda. It didn’t come out exactly how we had hoped, so it’s still in the tweaking stage. The flatbread was soft, more like a thick and floppy tortilla. I topped them with breakfast sausage, mozzarella cheese, and an over-easy egg. For the potatoes, I seasoned them with my homemade taco seasoning and they were great!

Night Seven: Blackstone, once again. This night we had DIY hibachi fried rice, teriyaki chicken, and hibachi veggies. It was AMAZING.