This is really great to be able to kick off 2017 with you today! We are having a great New Years Day with friends and family and have planned a really great meal plan that will allow us to have some left over's next week. After all the holiday cooking I always like to slow it down a little and have some easier days in the kitchen. This is a really great time of the year to get started on Meal Plans for your family. I have some great meal planning ideas for you at the end of todays post. Wishing You and Your Family Abundant Blessings In 2017!

I am so glad that you can join us for our last party of 2016! We have all had a great year together here at Full Plate Thursday, with all the wonderful food that you bring to share with us every week. We are going to finish our year out this week with our Top Ten Views from last week. I know that we will have a wonderful party today with lots of great ideas to help us bring in the new year. I really appreciate all of your support in 2016 and look forward to spending Thursday at the table with you in 2017!

I am always excited at the end of every year to take a look at YOUR Top Favortites for the year. I have so much fun sharing our simple way of life with all of you and I really look forward to you spending time with me in the kitchen as we are trying out new recipes. You have joined me in the garden as we prepared, planted and harvested our vegetables. We also had a big home improvement project this year that you came along on that journey. It has been fun taking this journey with you this year and I want to thank you for being a part of it!

We have had a fabulous Christmas with family and friends. We were so blessed to have some of our family here that had not been home in many years because of Military commitments, no empty plates on our table this year. We are planning a real southern and very traditional New Years meal plan for the beginning of a new year. As we close out 2016 together, I want to thank you for your loyal support through the years and let you know what a pleasure and joy it is for me to be able to share these meal plans with you every week.

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday Special Christmas Edition We are wrapping gifts, making cookies and baking special Christmas Breads here at the cottage, it smells so good in here. A Christmas Elf named Pilchard has made his way to a shelf and watching over the little one's here in the house. It is all a buzz and then on Christmas Eve it will all be still and quiet for just a bit to remember what Christmas is all about. On Christmas Morning we will wake to find that St. Nick has visited us while we slept. The very best part of it all will be the wonderful memories that will live in our heart. Thanks so much for coming today to share your awesome recipes helping us make memories to carry in our heart.

This retro Green Holiday Salad will be on lots of tables during the holidays. Each family seems to have their own recipe for this amazing salad that has been handed down from Grandma to Mom's and Aunts until it finally ends up on our table as well. I rarely remember a family holiday meal that we didn't have this salad. In our family we called it "The Green Salad", everyone just seemed to know which one it was. Recently I made the recipe for a holiday meal and remember all the wonderful family dinners where we would always find "The Green Salad". I often wondered as a young woman why we called it a salad when it was clearly dessert for me. I still love "The Green Salad" and it will sure be on our table again this year!

Only 8 days until Christmas and we are busy going to Christmas events and enjoying the excitment of the season in the faces of our grandchildren that are visiting for the holidays. I usually make the meal plan from Sunday through Saturday, but since Christmas Eve is on Saturday and Christmas Day on Sunday I am including both those days with this meal plan. I love the food this time of the year so my biggest challenge is making a decision what to make, I love to many different recipes. We will have a joyous Christmas with family that we have not seen in a very long time and for that we are so grateful! Wishing You and Your Family The Peace and Joy of Christmas and May It Live In Your Heart Always Merry Christmas

Hello everyone, we had so many wonderful recipes for the holidays at last week's party and I am looking forward to even more this week.  We have family visiting for the holidays and we have been enjoying trying some of your awesome recipes.  It is a very busy time of the year and one that I just love, I wish it could be Christmas everyday, I think that's the kid in me. Announcement To Give You More Time To Spend With Family Full Plate Thursday Will Post Early Next Week Tuesday December 20, 2016 7:00 a.m. EST Hope To See You There! Now Lets Get Today's Party Started!

Homemade Gifts are some of my most favorite gifts to give and receive. We put so much love and attention into the homemade gifts that we make, really we are giving a part of our self. When I am creating a new recipe, a painting, or making a quilt, I am giving you part of me. My husband and I grow a very large garden every year and then we preserve most of the vegetables so some of the gifts that we give are a labor of love from our garden. These are some of the gifts that will come from Miz Helen's Kitchen this year.

My Granddaughter Stephanie was recently visiting and we decided to make some Salted Caramel Candy, it was heavenly. Caramel is one of my favorite flavors for a treat so I could not wait to have one ( or more) of these delicious caramels. This is a great recipe and a lot of fun to make with a special Granddaughter or a friend. These little caramels will make a great gift for any occasion and disappear before you can wrap them all . Hope you enjoy these little caramels as much as we did!

Our cottage is all a buzz with activity this week. We have family that is here for the holidays and our Granddaughter and Great Granddaughter have just arrived, we are so excited. Meal planning is a must when the family gathers for special celebrations. We will be planning recipes this week that will be some of their favorites and some new recipes that I can't wait for them to sample. Hope you are taking the time to make meal plans through the holidays, it will sure save you time and money!

So many parties, parades, open houses and most of all wonderful food, tis the season! I am so excited that you could take some time from your busy life to stop by and share some of your awesome recipes with us today.  We truly do have the greatest cooks on the planet here on Thursday to fill our plates with goodness!

Our Spicy Pecan Custard Pie is a combination of a custard and some great sweet and spicy pecans. The pecans used in this recipe give the pie a great flavor that will surprise and wake up your taste buds with a special treat. The pie has a crunchy top with a very creamy inside then a bite of spice that will have you asking for seconds!

We like to serve this Rosemary Prime Rib Roast for very special occasions. It is a wonderful cut of meat that is tender and delicious. Our recipe for Rosemary Prime Rib Roast is very simple with the combination of herbs that forms the crust for the delicious flavor of the Prime Rib. I started making this recipe over 30 years ago and is still to this day one of our favorite's.

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving and now we are working hard to get ready for Christmas. I love to make special dishes for the season and decorate for the festivities. This week I will be attending a ladies luncheon where I will be taking one of my favortie salads. I am trying to get my meal plans made ahead of time for the month so I can enjoy the parties and my family who is here with us.

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday and the first party of December 2016! We had a fantastic Thanksgiving here at the cottage and sure hope you had a great holiday with family and friends.  We are busy decorating for the Christmas Season and planning menus with fun party food.  I can't wait to see what you are sharing today, I get so much inspriation from all of your amazing recipes! Thanks so much for coming today and lets get this party started!

One of my favorite breakfast is a plain yogurt with a topping of granola or fresh fruit.If I can combine the granola and fruit all the better. My Spicy Cranberry Granola is one of my favorite recipes, and can be used on yogurt, ice cream or just a bowl of fruit, I have even sprinkled some on a salad and it was fantastic! In addition to being a great granola mix, it makes a great gift for a friend or family member. My friends and family just love getting a lovely jar of this granola for a hostess, birthday or christmas gift.

One of the things that my husband and I have enjoyed since we were very young is Apple Butter. We love Apple Butter as a condiment on meat and the very best is Apple Butter and Biscuits. Since we love Apple Butter so much, why not put it in a cake and we did. It is frosted with a maple flavored butter cream frosting that is a perfect topping for this awesome cake. This cake is so moist is almost cuts like a pie and is just delicious and a recipe that we will make over and over. We love this cake and I am so happy to share it with all of you today!

Thanksgiving was great here at the cottage and I sure hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Of course we have some left overs that we will be using on the meal plan this week.  We are busy already starting to decorate for Christmas, my favorite time of the year. We always wait until Thanksgiving is over before we start on Christmas.  This week we will be planning some easy recipes that don't take a lot of attention.

We are having Full Plate Thursday early this week, so we can all enjoy our friends and families on Thanksgiving Day. I want to say Thank You to each of you who bring your amazing recipes here every week to share with us, you are really the greatest cooks on the planet. I can't wait to see what you are sharing today so lets get the party started.

I just love the new baked tacos shells that we find at the super market, they have come a long way from the taco shell that we had to fry then hang upside down on a rack. Another plus to these tacos, you can make a few or enough for a crowd. Just load them on a baking sheet pour in the filling and they are ready to bake. I am using left over Turkey today to make this awesome recipe. No matter how well we plan there is always a little left over turkey or chicken and what better way to make a left over come to life than a great Tex Mex Taco.

Here we are at Thanksgiving Week, what a wonderful time to stop and be thankful for all the bounty that we have been given. We like many of you will be sitting down for our Traditional Turkey Dinner on Thanksgiving Day. I count all of you among my many blessings  I am grateful for each of you and thank you for  being a part of our world here at  Miz Helen's Country Cottage!

We are having the most beautiful fall weather here that I remember having in many years, a perfect time for wonderful fall recipes. A drive out to our cottage along the country roads is so beautiful in the fall. We have been enjoying a visit with our Son and Daughter In Law that have both recently retired from the USAF, it is so good to have them home. I am so excited to see all of you today and can't wait to see what wonderful recipes you are going to be sharing today!

I remember standing on a chair in my Grandmothers kitchen stirring the flour and sugar together for the cobbler she would be making for a meal. Looking back I really think that cobbler must have been her favorite and I know it is mine. Cobbler is a favorite here at the cottage and this Pumpkin Cobbler is a really big hit. It is a very rich cobbler that is full of wonderful pumpkin and spice. I gave this cobbler a little topping of pecans which really makes it special!

We have a very large family and we usually have more family at the cottage on Thanksgiving than any other holiday. The Thanksgiving dinner here is a very large buffet with several different dishes to choose from, we usually try to have at least 2 of everything to offer. These are some of the dishes that we will be having this year at our Thanksgiving dinner here at the cottage.

We are so excited to have our son and daughter in law here for a visit. They have just retired from 36 years in the military and are moving home to Texas. I am planning some of their favorite foods and some that will allow me to spend more time visiting with them. This is one of the times when meal plans really pay off, I will have all the marketing done and even some of the dishes prepared in advance, saving me time and money. This is a great time of the year to get into meal planning with the holidays coming up.

I am so happy to see you here today at Full Plate Thursday. Fall is diffently in the air and we have been looking forward to all the wonderful warm and cozy foods that show up on our tables this time of the year.We have had some rainy weather this week and it has been very chilly, just a perfect fall evening for a get together with all of our friends. I can hardly wait to see what you are bringing to share with us this week. It is always so good to see you here and thanks so much for coming today!

We grow green beans in our garden every year and from that harvest we have fresh green beans for recipes, then we preserve some the beans for use during the winter months. Fresh Green Beans With Apple Dressing is a recipe that we developed this year and we have really enjoyed it. The fresh green beans are covered with a fresh apple dressing that has a fabulous flavor. I have shared this dish at pot lucks and with dinner guest, it has been a big hit and sure hope you enjoy it!

My Grandparents, then my parents grew Sweet Potatoes on the farm and in the garden. There were times during the year when the sweet potato was a regular on the dinner table when I was growing up. I still love sweet potatoes today and we grow them in the garden here at the cottage. One of the recipes that we really enjoy is Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallow Topping, these potatoes are so delicious, you just have to try them. This is a great side dish anytime of the year and is a family favorite Garden to Table!

This week will be filled with excitement for some and disappointment for others, our general election for the USA is on Tuesday of this week. We always have a little election gathering of a few friends but we keep it simple. It is a little rainy here with fall really beginning to come to our area, at last! When the weather gets rainy I always look for wonderful soups and cozy food for our meal plan.

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday # 300! What a milestone for this party that would not have made it this long without your support. This party every Thursday has been one of the highlights of my blog life and you'al have become so dear to me.  Some of you have been so faithful to come and share with us now for years and we have developed real friendships. Thank you so much for coming each week and sharing your life with us, you are what makes Full Plate Thursday so special! The very first post for Full Plate Thursday went out in January and we are planning a big celebration for that day, sure hope you will be here for that party. I can't wait to see what you are sharing today so lets get the party started. Don't forget to check out the Thank You Gift I have for some lucky viewer!

One of our family favorites is Chicken and Dressing. When we are talking about dressing here in the south it is cornbread dressing and that is the base of this recipe. Every now and then we like to kick it up just a little and this dressing is filled with apples, giving it a fantastic flavor.We love to make this when the apples are fresh, you really can smell this dressing cooking when you come in the door. My son always says, "oh boy Mom is cooking dressing."

I just love a baked or roasted chicken, and it can be very versatile, tender and delicious. Sometimes a baked chicken can be just a bit more moist than a roasted chicken depending on the recipe. This Honey Baked Chicken is so moist and tender, it falls from the bone and sits in a most delicious gravy that forms while baking. The flavor of this chicken will have you returning to the recipe over and over again.

We are expecting lots of precious little trick or treater's at the cottage this week and we will enjoy seeing them all. It is always a fun time of the fall with dressing up and watching all the little children and (Kid's at heart) have so much fun. We will be planning our traditional Dinner for Halloween evening. It is so much fun to make meal plans around such a fun time of the year.

I hope that all of your are ready for the little trick or treaters that will be coming to the door this coming weekend. We always love to treat the little ones that are in our neighbour with special little treats.  I am excited to present your Top Ten Feature Picks from last weeks party, a party custom here on the last Thursday of the month.  I can't wait to see all the treats that you will be sharing with us today, so lets get the party started!

Tex Mex Breakfast Burrito is one of our families go to fast breakfast. A Breakfast Burrito is great for a busy family morning, early start on a road trip, or just because it's a great breakfast item. When I make this recipe, we always freeze part of the recipe or all of it, that way we always have a Burrito ready to go. Just a few seconds in the micro wave and it's ready to eat. This is one of our favorite grab and go breakfast and is packed with Tex Mex flavor.

When I made the first batch of these Apple Cookies I thought I would have enough to fill the cookie jar, that did not happen. The cookie's went so fast I didn't even have enough to make photo's for this post, the cookies are a big hit here at the cottage. I have made a batch of these cookies every week for a few weeks. This recipe is crunchy on the outside with a nice maple glaze and soft on the inside with wonderful bits of apple. This recipe for Apple Cookies will be one that we make over and over.

We are in the last full week of October and this month has flown by. I am so excited to go to an annual fall gathering this coming week, we will be seeing old friends and having one of those fabulous Pot Luck Suppers with yummy food. We have really been enjoying the beautiful butterflies in our yard, they are all over our Zinea's as they are on miagration right now and I sure am glad that we are a stop on their journey. Since I have a meal plan every week, it gives me more time to enjoy other things.

I am so excited to see all of you today, and really looking forward to our weekly recipe exchange. I have sure been enjoying the fall recipes that are coming to the party every week. I love this time of the year when all the little communities are having harvest carnivals, for young and old alike the carnivals are so much fun. Of course the State Fair of Texas is in full swing and who would even think of going there without have a Corny Dog and maybe a Funnel Cake, (that certainly would not be me!) Lets get this party started, I can't wait to see what you are sharing today!

When my husband and I decided to downsize about 9 years ago to a tiny cottage, it was long before "Tiny Houses" were as popular as they are today. I love my tiny cottage and it has been so much fun to decorate. The acreage is much larger than the cottage with vegetable and herb gardens,outdoor kitchen and more. We repainted the outside of the house earlier this spring and then we redid all the front flower beds. The beds have had a chance to get started so I am happy to share the progress with you today, plus it is all ready for fall.

There is nothing better than a comforting pot of chili just about any time of the year, and we do love our chili here at the cottage. This recipe is a hearty chili with a bold flavor and is a little different because I used sausage for the meat in the chili and it is fantastic! I knew it was going to be a great recipe when I could smell it cooking and folks coming in the door would say, what in the world smells so good? We really enjoyed this recipe and sure hope you do!

It is actually beginning to cool off just a bit here and giving us an idea that a true fall is just around the corner.I sat down to make my meal plan for the week and my husband said I would sure love it if you made that "Apple Thing" that you made the other day for the ballgame on Sunday, of course I will do that for him. I love it when my family knows to ask for their favorites to go on the meal plan. It is a great time of the year to get out our Apple recipes and put them to work, the Apples are so delicious right now.

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday now in our 5th year! We gather here on Thursday to enjoy a wonderful recipe linky exchange with the greatest cooks on the planet and we are so glad that you joined us today! I just returned from a fantastic fall retreat with some amazing women and the food was delicious. Our retreat was in the country at a wonderful retreat facility where we enjoyed relaxation and fellowship with close friends. I always love a time of renewal. Thanks so much for coming today and bringing your fabulous recipes!

One of the wonderful childhood memories that I have is coming home from a long day at school to a nice after school treat. In the years when I was a stay at home Mom I loved making special treats for my kids to have for their after school treats. This is my retro Crunchy Top Brownies that have severed as an after school treat for my kids plus many of their friends. This brownie is just like fudge on the inside with a little crunch on top. When I make these brownies they sure bring back so many great memories!

This recipe started with a basket of beautiful apples from a friend. I was planning on making a baked sandwich of some kind for a luncheon and decided that the apples would be delicious in this baked sandwich. This combination is delicious and the apples just give it a very special flavor. The cheese melting with the apple, ham and turkey is a great combination and is topped off with a fabulous cinnamon dressing. This is a real hearty baked sandwich and could be served for a luncheon, dinner or would be great for a game day gathering.

We are getting some of the best fall vegetables from the garden and some of our neighbors fruit trees. I just love being in the country in the fall with all the little farm stands showing off the wonderful displays of pumpkins and fall fruit. I am excited to have one of my favorites on Sunday and one of my husbands favorite breakfast dishes on the menu this week.  We love soup so I have decided to have Soup Monday on the meal plan for a while, it will be fun!

I get so excited on Thursday because I know that all of you will be coming over with fantastic recipes to share. Every week we have some of the greatest cooks on the planet bring food to our table and share their life with us. We are having some beautiful fall weather right now and it is a great time to take a drive in the country, stop at some farmers markets and just enjoy the season.  Thanks so much for taking the time to come and share with us today, you make this party so special!

My husband grew up on a cattle ranch and one of his favorite breakfast from those days is Huevos Rancheros. I will often times surprise him with some of his favorites and this is one of those recipes. The orginal recipe that we used from the ranch bunk house, used fried tortillas and fried eggs. I changed the recipe a number of years ago in an effort to be able to make more Rancheros at the same time and be able to serve the guest at once instead of just one or two at a time and asking folks to wait for theirs to be cooked.  My husband and our guest love this recipe and I am so happy to share it with you today.

This is the time of the year that we begin to think of warm cozy soups and stews that can be simmering away in the slow cooker or in the soup pot on the stove. It is great to walk in the door after a very busy day to the wonderful smell of a great soup or stew. These are the kind of recipes that the family can all sit down together and enjoy or busy family members can grab that bowl of goodness whenever their busy schedule allows. It has been my experience that the sports coaches, and the executive board rooms don't always run on our kitchen schedule. These are some of our favorite's and sure hope you enjoy them!

For my meal plan this week, I just took a freezer inventory and I have several packages of poultry and beef that I need to use before I restock the freezer for winter.I keep a running inventory of the freezer foods and it really helps to keep the products fresh. There is nothing worse than pulling a freezer bag out of the freezer and it has freezer burn all over it because it was forgotten, a running inventory prevents that freezer burner moment. I hope that is a tip that will help you in your meal planning.