When the family is all home and its meal time, sometimes it can be very hectic to get a meal on the table. Often times the kids are hungry and will walk around the kitchen just waiting for the meal to be ready, just turn around to head to the stove and just about step on one. Meal Plan Scavenger Hunt is a really fun and very productive family game that we used to play with our kids and still use the concept when they all come home still today. 

Our Strawberry Skillet Cake is just like the one that my Mother made when I was a young girl. I just took her basic recipe and dressed it up a little to make it a delicious dessert that can be a dessert for a casual family dinner or a dinner party for friends. Strawberries say spring and summer fresh, although today we are fortunate to be able to get strawberries most of the year round. We love this dessert and hope you will enjoy it with your friends and family. To honor my Mother I am using her old black iron skillet that I got after she passed away, of course I treasure that skillet.

Spring is really here, I am able to go to the screen porch to write the meal plan this week, it is wonderful to be able to sit outdoors for a bit. I really love making spring food and am looking forward to using some of my favorite recipes this week. Our garden that we planted recently is doing great and it won't be much longer and my Swiss Chard will be going into a dish, I was able to harvest some asparagus from the asparagus patch, it is so fresh. I know that many of you are at home just now and maybe don't have an opportunity to go outdoors or to the garden. I am going to be passing along a little food game that you might enjoy playing with your kids that will involve them in the meal planning and preparation of the meal, be sure and watch for that post. I am thinking about all of you and would love to hear from you in the comments!

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, we are so happy to see you today. This is our Top Ten Features Week, our Top Ten Views from last weeks party. Some really great recipes and other food realated post to help us out with our family needs. I hope that you will take the time to visit these talented bloggers. We are in very uncertain times and many of us are sheltered in place which means that we need these awesome recipes that all of you create for us. Please know that all of you are in my thoughts and we are praying that you and your family will stay healthy. Please leave us a comment and let us know that you are ok, I really care about you!

Our Retro Grape and Celery Salad With Sour Cream Dressing is a great salad for any occasion. This is a recipe that goes together really fast and has the most delicious sour cream dressing. The fresh taste of the grapes combined with the crunchy bite of celery brings back all those memories when we used to make this salad in our homemaking class. This is one of my favorite salads and brings a lot of comfort to any meal and we have used it for a snack many times.

Our Beef Stroganoff Casserole is a combination of a great tasting stroganoff blended with some ground chuck, vegetables and a sauce that is fabulous. We add some Cellentani pasta to the mix to produce a very special casserole. This is a casserole that can feed a very hungry group of folks at a covered dish or a family. If you are not feeding a group or a large family it will freeze for up to 3 months. Sometimes we will eat half of it and freeze the rest, then sometimes I just share with a friend. 

I am excited to just sit down for a little bit and plan next weeks menu. I have been really busy here at the cottage, taking advantage of staying at home. I have taken the at home time to organize closets, pantries, refrigerator's and freezer. I usually do all that general re-org in the fall and spring so I am getting an early start on the spring clean and re-org. I will be planning the meal plan this week from the products that I have on hand. I am so glad that I stocked up before all the shelves in the markets are empty and now being rationed on some products. How are your markets where you live and what kind of meals will you be planning this week, leave us a comment and let us know. I really care about you and your family and sincerely hope you will remain safe and healthy.

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, I am so happy to see you here today! We have had some major re-arangements in our lives in the past week, with the announcement that we are in a world wide Pandemic due to the Corona-19 Virus.   We have an amazing blogging community that has developed through the years and many folks out there will be looking to this party for ideas with food, meal planning and just fun ideas to help them get through this.  Depending on where you are located we are all living in a different way today. One of the new phrases we are using today is "social distancing". Folks are staying home and will be cooking more than ever. I hope that all of you were able to stock your pantries before the shelves have begun to empty in so many area's. I posted a  Stock Your Pantry, Stay Calm, Be Ready , I hope this has been a help to you and it is still a good tool as we move along in this Pandemic. I invite you to take the time to let us hear from you in...

Our Pistachio Ice Box Pie is one of those recipes that is a real go to. This pie is a great combination of a creamy filling in a ready made graham cracker crust topped off with some whipped topping and fresh fruit. This is almost a pantry staple here at the cottage. I like to keep some of these ready made graham cracker crust on hand for just such a pie that I can make on short notice for a husband who wants a special dessert tonight!

I was asked last week to bring a casserole to a family in our comminity who were just having a really hard time in life right now. As I was making this Chicken Noodle Casserole for them I was thinking about so many of you who may be having a really hard time in life right now and could just use a special touch or a little extra love. This is one of those casseroles that will bring a lot of comfort with homemade style noodles, nice size bites of chicken breast and some amazing vegetables to assemble a great dish filled with flavor. If you lived close to me this one would be for you!

Meal plans are very important right now in our state of emergency here in the USA as it is with many countries, due to the Coronavirus-19. We could be and are being asked to spend more time in our homes so meal plans will be a great help to keeping our families on track and healthy during this trying time. I had posted a pantry list,  Stock Your Pantry, Stay Calm,Be Ready and you may find it helpful. Some products, like hand santanizer, and paper goods are already in short supply. I haven't seen any short supplies here in food yet, so it is wise to stock up before that happens. I pray that all of you will be safe and healthy, you are all very special to me and I care what happens to you. Leave me a comment and let me know what your family will be doing during this time.

This Pistachio Bundt Cake will melt in your mouth. This recipe is very light and yet rich in flavor. Covered in a very thin glaze that collects on the bottom of the cake then sprinkled with some confectioners sugar. We like to serve this cake with some fresh fruit and whipped cream. A delicious cake that happens to be one of my husbands favorite's!

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday and The Week Of The Irish! We are so happy to see you today and to know that we are going to have such a great party today. We had some awesome post last week that we are featuring today and sure hope you will take the time to stop by and say hello to these very talented bloggers. We are so excited here at the cottage, we got to get most of our spring vegetables and herbs planted in the gardens this past weekend. We are already excited to have our first veggies from the garden. Many thanks to each one of you for stopping by to have fun with us today, you are very special to us!

If you don't have a lot of time to prepare a special Irish recipe this is the one you have been looking for. Irish Banger Skillet is so full of great Irish flavors and takes very little time before it is on the table for a hungry family. I love going to the garden for a fresh cabbage to use in this recipe, making it a great garden to table delight.  We are an Irish family with lots of family favorites, but this is a great go to recipe that our family loves!

I look forward to making the meal plans for this week. I want to be sure and include some real comfomt food and some garden to table recipes we have some great vegetables in the garden that I really want to use. It has been a week for all us around the globe, the spread of the newest Corona 19 Virus and an E-4 tornado in Tennessee. My heart goes out to all of you who have been affected in some way by these events.  I posted a pantry list to help you stock your pantry for emergenices,  Stock Your Pantry, Stay Calm, Be Ready: Emergencies , I hope you find it helpful.

March has arrived, and feels like spring here already. A perfect time to start looking at our St. Patricks Day Plans for food and fun. We sure had a great party last week with our Top Ten Features and this week we have a whole new group of features from very talented bloggers that I hope you will stop by and see. Every week I Tweet this party several times, put it on facebook, pin it to a special board and then the features are pinned to a special features board. We really try to see that your post are seen by as many folks as possible. I look forward to seeing what you will be sharing with us this week, it is so good to see you here!

I get real excited when the cabbage heads in the garden are ready to harvest, so we can enjoy some of our favorite cabbage recipes. One of our favorite recipes is our Old Fashioned Creamed Cabbage, it is a very simple dish but has amazing flavor that comes through with a creamy sauce. There is no doubt that this is a delicious comforting vegetable dish. 

How do you prepare your pantry for disasters or emergencies? We never know when we will have to face a natural disaster such as a storm or perhaps some other emergencies that will keep us away from the market. There are are even times when that market may  have empty shelves or be closed all together. In the past week the  CDC (Centers For Disease Control & Prevention) has strongly suggested that we prepare our homes in the event of a health emergency that could possibly come to our country. It has been suggested that we prepare for a 2 week or 14 day stay inside our home if need be.