Hello everyone, I sure hope that you'al are enjoying your summer. I know that some families are in the last little bit of summer as their schools will be starting in a week or two. It seems like the summer vacation from school gets less and less as we move along. We are excited that this is our Top Ten Features from our last party, a monthly feature that everyone always looks forward to. Be sure and stop by to say hello to these talented bloggers. We have a great Full Plate Thursday community and I am so honored to be a part of it!

Pork and peaches are a great combination for this awesome recipe. These Kabobs are just delicious and will serve a crowd or just a few with ease. The recipe is very easy and the glaze could be used on several other dishes. We love to grill whenever we can and live in an area where we can grill most of the year. This is a great grilling recipe and gives just the right flavors to the pork and peaches.

Photo  Top Right: Miz Helen Age 7  Bottom Right: Great Granddaughter Ella June Age 7 When I was a young girl, I went to the garden to help my Grandmother with the planting and harvest of the wonderful vegetables. That set in me a desire to have my own garden someday and my love for fresh fruits and vegetables. Each year when my Great Granddaughter Ella visits for her summer visit we get to share the garden with her, passing on the hope that someday she to will have a desire to have her own garden and pass this art of gardening on to her Granddaughters. We are very blessed in our generation to be able not only to pass this along to our Grandchildren but also our Great Grandchildren. Gardening is truly an art that we are so honored to have received from my Grandparents and to pass on to the next generations.

I am sitting on the screen porch today just looking out at the bird feeders and watching the birds busy with their day. I love being able to be outdoors and work on our meal plan while I visit with all of you. We are still very busy here at the cottage with the summer garden harvest and making sure that we are preserving as much of that harvest as we can. I love having the garden vegetables that we can use in our meal plans every week of the summer season.

Come on back to the screen porch, we have ice cold lemonade, some herb ice water and some southern iced sweet tea, just help yourself and find a cool spot under the fans. It is hot here so we are looking for some ways and foods to help us stay cool. We had a great party last week and have fantastic features from that party. I sure hope you will take the time to visit these very talented bloggers and tell them hello. I can't wait to see what you are bringing to the party today, I always look forward to your visits and thanks so much for being a part of this special community!

When fresh peach season comes we love to go to the near by peach orchards and get fresh peaches. The farmers market in our area always has great peaches, but there is something special about the peach right off the tree. This fresh Peach Galette is a very primitive pie and is so easy to make, but has an abundance of flavor. And of course we like to top our galette with a nice dip of ice cream!

Our Southern Burger Sliders are great to serve a crowd and just the perfect size for an appetizer or a meal. The patties are filled with wonderful southern flavors and layered with fresh vegetables and toped with a great sauce. We have served these little sliders for different gatherings and some folks don't even wait until they get on the platter. You know those folks the guys who hang around the grill and the grill master and all of a sudden you realeize that you have ended up with less than you started with, do you have any folks like that at your grill? 

We were in the garden very early this morning gathering our vegetables for our meal plan before it gets to hot. Now I can sit here on the screen porch with you and sip some ice cold sweet tea while we make a great meal plan for next week. I like to include recipes that don't require heating up the kitchen this time of the year so we can enjoy some lighter and cooler meal times. My birthday is this week, so there could be some surprises coming, because it is a really big birthday. Although when you get to be my age, I guess they are all really big birthdays! Whats your favorite meal to have on your birthday?

Hello everyone,  we are out on  the screen porch today, sipping some cold tea, come on back and join us. It is starting to get hot here and we retreat to the coolest spots we can find in the heat of the day. We are having a great harvest from our garden right now so we are very busy canning, preserving and enjoying fresh vegetables from the garden. We have some awesome features this week from the party last week and I hope you will take the time to visit these talented bloggers and say hello! Thanks so much for coming to the party today, I always look forward to seeing you every week!

Our Greek Salad Boat is a fresh light combination of vegetables and served in a crusty bread boat. I love the Greek flavors in the combination of herbs and vegetables with a fantastic dressing, and then there is the bread. Oh yes that crusty bread to this bread lover is a perfect partner for this salad. This is a great way to serve a salad that becomes a meal and one of my favorites. The salad is great to serve as an appetizer, side dish or as the entree. This is a great garden to table dish that is great any time of the year!

Mediterranean Chicken Skillet is a delicious light skillet of goodness. This is a recipe that goes together quick and is ready to go on the table with very little effort, and for busy days that is a plus! The combination of flavor in this recipe is just a perfect blend of spice for a big hit here at the cottage.  This is a great meal, served with a vegetable, or maybe a salad and some crusty bread, I am hungry just thinking about it!

What a wonderful week we had visiting with our Granddaughter and Great Granddaughter, a very special time. They live a very long way away from us so when we get to see them it is so special! Now the cottage will be so quiet this week, but we will be enjoying some great meals and who knows who will  be dropping by. Our meal plan this week will have some special garden to table recipes that we really enjoy this time of the year! So come on out to the garden with me and we will gather a basket of vegetables and see what recipe it leads to.

Hope all of you had a fantastic holiday weekend, and are ready to enjoy this beautiful summer day. We are enjoying very special house guest this week at the cottage, that is the awesome thing about summer we get to see some of our family and friends that live so far away. We had some great post last week that are featured for our party today. I sure hope you will take the time to visit these talented bloggers and take a look at their post. Leave us a comment and let us know what you are doing this summer, I always love hearing from all of you!

I love going out to my garden early in the morning and coming back to the kitchen with a basket full of awesome vegetables. Our family really enjoys a great vegetable recipe and often times we enjoy meatless meals. This is one of those garden creations that came together out of a wonderful garden harvest basket of vegetables, and is so simple to prepare. I have added some herbs and a little cheese to give it a very special flavor. This Garden to Table Casserole is a great side dish a delicious surprise for a covered dish and will even be a stand alone dish for lunch. 

Sometimes after a really busy weekend I will open the refrigerator on Monday Morning and see all the "Little Bit's" of the weekend past. Today I have some left over grilled rib eye steak, a great grilled chicken breast, some roasted corn and chilies, along with some other wonderful flavor, this makes a great cob salad. The "Little Bit's" are used up and I have a day off in the kitchen, who doesn't like that.

The cottage is filled with wonderful energy this time of the year, with family, friends and lots of activities at the lake and our community. It sure makes planning meals even more important, it is not a good time to wonder up and down the supermarket isle and not have a clue what is going in the shopping cart for dinner. We are looking forward to some very special house guest that are coming to the cottage this week, and I am so excited to plan some of their favorite recipes on the meal plan. 

The Party Is Open Early Today! The Links Are Open Now We Are Opening The Party Early Today  To Allow You More Time To Spend Enjoying Your Celebrations! Welcome to Full Plate Thursday and the 4th of July Celebration! We are all ready for a 4th party here at the cottage and so glad you could stop by today to enjoy some of the awesome dishes that we are sharing at the party! We have some great features from last week and sure hope that you will enjoy the post from these talented bloggers.   Wishing each one of you a safe and fun 4th of July celebration.  I want to thank all the folks who make it possible for us to enjoy this freedom, especially our family members who are currently deployed.

The first time I remember making this salad was in my homemaking class, back in the day when we still had homemaking classes in our school system. I am still making the salad and still serving it in my Covered Pyrex Dish. It is a delicious salad and has gone to many a picnic, and covered dish dinner. When our family gets together it is always one of the favorites, truly a classic comfort salad!

This strawberry cake recipe is so moist and delicious with a secret that makes it very special. We can get strawberries most all year in our super market but the best berries are when they are in season. The berries are so sweet and juicy I just can't resist putting them into a great dessert. This Strawberry Jam Cake looks beautiful on the cake plate and each bite is full of flavor!