I remember going to my aunts house in the summer and she would make her breaded tomatoes. She would go out to her garden gather beautiful tomatoes, then back to the kitchen. She would do the prep work, then squeeze those tomatoes over the crusty day old bread, pop some butter on top and bake it in the oven for a while, it was delicious. My recipe for Italian Scalloped Tomatoes has some wonderful Italian seasons but with that same old fashioned buttery flavor. This is a great recipe to take as a side dish to a covered dish event, folks really enjoy it and I hope you do.

Only two days left in July and then it is on to August. Here in Texas August means lots of hot days, sitting on the porch sipping ice cold sweet tea and fanning. When making the meal plan this week I am trying to keep the kitchen as cool as possible and just enjoy the lazy days of summer.

Welcome to our Full Plate Thursday Top Ten Features Week. The last week of every month we feature the Top Ten Post from last weeks party. These are the Top Ten post with the most page views, these are your favorites! I always love this party featuring your choices for the week. I am also looking forward to seeing what you will be bringing to share at the party later today. Thanks so much for being a part of Full Plate Thursday, it wouldn't be the same without YOU!

When my husband and I were dating,(which was a very long time ago) we would often times have dinner at a small cafe in our hometown. Our favorite thing to order was the Hamburger Steak with potato wedges. From time to time we have a special date night and we will have a Retro Grilled Hamburger Steak and some potato wedges. It is so much fun to make this menu, then we spend the evening watching an old movie or just going back down memory lane. We have really worked on our recipe to get it as close to the original as possible, including grilling it over an open flame.

We have had a fabulous production from our garden vegetables this year. It is really nice to pick the garden early in the day then come to the kitchen to decide what to create from the wonderful garden bounty. This Garden Fresh Nicoise Salad is made with vegetables right out of the garden and the flavor of the vegetables and dressing is a delicious combination! Our family loves this salad and it is one that we make the year round, of course we enjoy it more when our vegetables come right out of the garden.

We enjoyed having our daughter from Oregon visit us last week, it is so nice to have a chance to visit with family and friends that live so far away. We have passed another mile stone here at the cottage, I made my very first blog post 7 years ago on July 18, 2010. On August 18, 2010, just one month later  I posted  Whats For Dinner Next Week , and have published our weekly meal plan every week since. When I first started publishing our family meal plan every week, I included a weekly feature recipe and the one on this post is still one of our favorites. I want to say Thank You To each one of you who have been on this journey with me and helped to make Miz Helen's Country Cottage so special to me. I look forward to interacting with you each week and made so many wonderful blogging friends here through these years. You are very dear to my heart and I treasure you friendships, thanks for being here!

We are having so much fun here at the cottage this week. Our daughter from Portland is visiting and we are really enjoying her visit. She picked out one of last weeks features to make for lunch and it is fantastic!  We are sure looking forward to seeing what you are sharing today, your food is always the best! Thanks For The Last 7 Years! On July 18, 2017 Miz Helen's Country Cottage was 7 years old, I made my  "First Post"  on July 18, 2010. So many of you have been a part of our journey from the very beginning and I appreciate you so much! Some of you have become my friends and what a blessing all of you have been in my life. Thank you so much for taking the time to be a part of our life, you have a very special spot in my heart!

We have some wonderful orchards near our cottage and we love the fresh fruits that they offer. There are so many ways that we can enjoy fruit and one of our favorite recipes is grilled. Grilling fruit brings out the natural flavors and sweetness of the fruit. For this Grilled Fruit Salad recipe I am using the grilled fruit in this wonderful salad. I am using the lettuce from our our home grown lettuce, that we grow in our lettuce tub. The dressing for this salad is delicious and can be used with any salad.

We are so excited to have our daughter from Oregon visiting with us this week. We always have cooking and craft projects planned for her visits. She has actually helped me put some of these meal plans together, because they are her favorites. I love the summer when we can make special dishes for all of our visiting family and friends.

The Greatest Cooks On The Planet Gather Here Each Thursday To Exchange Recipes And Foodie News I am so glad you could come out to the country today for Full Plate Thursday. Thursdays are very special here because we always look forward to the wonderful food that you will be sharing with us each week. We have had some amazing summertime dishes at the party the past few weeks, if you need a great recipe you will find it here. We truly do have the greatest cooks on the planet that gather here every Thursday!

We love to have a nice brunch or a really late breakfast here at the cottage, especially on weekends. If the weather is nice we like to have our brunch or breakfast out on the screen porch. We have enjoyed some beautiful strawberries from the strawberry patch this year and I thought these would sure make a great brunch dish and so they have. This is a fantastic recipe that we will enjoy over and over.

This was a very short week with the 4th falling on Tuesday, gave us a very long holiday weekend. Now here we are getting ready for next week already, I think the summer months always fly by. There is always so many fun things to do and good food to eat. Very excited to be having one of our daughters come home for a visit this week, so we will be making some of her favorites on our meal plan this week, I just love the summertime visits.

The Greatest Cooks On The Planet Gather Here Each Thursday To Exchange Recipes And Foodie News Hope all of you had a great 4th of July celebration and I know that some of you actually had a few days off work. We are sure glad to see you here today at Full Plate Thursday! We have great features from last week so be sure and check them out to get those great recipes! We are all looking forward to seeing all the recipes that you are sharing with us today so lets get this party started!

What's In Season and How Do I Use It? July is here with its parades, fireworks and great fresh foods. Many of the foods that we have had in our basket for the past two months are still producing and can be found at many of the farmers markets. Some of the foods this month are produced here in the south, however my granddaughter that lives in New York can often times find some of them. Some of the recipes that I will share with you this month have been passed down in our family for generations, I hope you enjoy them.

Here comes the fun food, parades, fireworks, celebrations and picnic's it's JULY! We are busy here at the cottage getting ready for the big celebration on the 4th of July and enjoying some weekend activities that lead up to the 4th.  I love all the wonderful food and recipes that come this time of the year and always look forward to having some great menus for friends and family that will be joining us.