Hello everyone, weather seems to be a big consideration in meal plans right now. No matter where you live the weather seems to be out of the norm. Some of my teacher friends are going back to school this next week, wow it is here already. We are planning a trip to a local farmers market today as our garden production is pretty much over for this summer, the heat took its toll on the garden. It will be fun to go to the Farmers Market and see what they have shipped in from different parts of the country, of course the next question will be the cost. We are in a major shift for this time of the year because of our major garden fail. I found some great fresh vegetables and some fresh ground corn meal at the Farmers Market. 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday! I am so excited to see you here today. This is our special Top Ten Features Week, that you choose from last weeks party. The Top Ten Features are great and I sure hope you enjoy them. I can't wait to see what you will be sharing with us at the party today, thanks so much for coming!

  We love to bring a basket of fresh vegetables from the garden to the kitchen and create a very special dish that our family will enjoy. This is a recipe that I recently put together with one of the garden baskets full of fresh vegetables. I have a simple sauté of the vegetables with a few seasons and then a great vinaigrette. We love a versatile side dish like this that can be served hot or cold.

  We have had a great canning season this year. Our cucumbers came on early so it allowed us to make pickles before the heat of the summer set in. This pickle recipe is a combination of a sour and dill pickle, and have been developed through my years of canning. We are a pickle loving family so we love the different flavors that can come from a simple jar of pickles.

Hello everyone from one of the hottest summers we have had for almost 20 years. We are just trying to stay cool and hoping to save as many trees, shrubs and plants as is possible. I am thinking of a meal plan that will keep us cool and nourished. I have only a few garden vegetables, but thankfully my pantry is well stocked and our electric grid is holding on so we still have some good freezer foods. I will be going to look for recipes now and we will see what I come up with for the week. Planning a meal plan is so important especially in times like this when there may be a limited supply of fresh foods in the community. 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday! We have some great features today that I hope you will enjoy!

We have had a great green bean harvest this year. We have had green beans to can and green beans from the garden to the table and this is one of those recipes. This has so far been my favorite fresh green bean recipe for this summer, it is so easy and the flavors are amazing! A recipe that is very simple with the sauce just perfect for fresh green beans. This recipe may just be my winner for the summer garden season. A great one from garden to table!

  We really enjoy seasonal foods here at the cottage and the strawberries have been beautiful this year. I wanted to put together a salad for a pot luck, this is a delicious salad that I ended up with. We have really been enjoying the recipe it was so simple to put together. I keep cooked chicken in 3 cup measures in my freezer for salad's, casseroles and other recipes. We have the pasta, chicken, fresh Strawberries, Spinach and other greens, plus an amazing Strawberry Balsamic Dressing. This is a delicious salad!

I am so grateful to be a meal planner. I hear from so many folks asking for help with their weekly food planning, food budgets, and making some kind of meal that will feed a family. I know that by making a meal plan for the week, we will save money, by making planned left overs. and buying food products that are in season and on sale. Making the meal plan will also help us save time and energy. This week at the cottage we finally got some rain today, we are still about 10 inches below average rainfall for the season, but todays rain at least cooled things off just a bit and gave us some hope. I am off to the garden to see what might be available for a meal plan.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 597! Come in the cottage quick where it is cool, we have excessive heat of 107 degrees today, with no rain in sight. We have some great features today that I sure hope you will enjoy, I have tried some and they are delicious! Sometime in heat like this we don't have much of an appetite, so we look for easy cool dishes that will get us out of the kitchen fast. I can't wait to see what all of you will be bringing to the party today. Thanks so much for coming , you are very special to us and we always look forward to seeing you here!

Our Canned Basil, Onion & Garlic Stewed Tomatoes are a great addition to our canning pantry. For several years I have noticed that the canned stewed tomatoes in the super market's have added pepper, both sweet and hot, onions, and garlic. I made a decision to make my own and it is delicious. I am so glad that I gave this a try, because I will making many more pints of this mix. It is a great base for Italian sauces, pair it with a soup or slow cooker recipe. I made pasta and just used the tomatoes right out of the jar. From Garden to Canner!

  Our BLT Pasta Salad is a delicious salad any time of the year, but when it is really hot outside, this cold salad topped with crispy bacon is perfect for a salad luncheon or a lite supper. We mix the pasta  with a fantastic homemade dressing that we keep in the refrigerator and enjoy using  on other salads. It is a great salad to just have in the refrigerator, just waiting for that one person who will come and stand with the door open just looking for the right thing to eat, you know the kind, there is one in every house. Hope you enjoy the recipe!

We are going to be trying to make the coolest meal plan for this week. We have a weather advisory for Excessive Heat up to 111 degrees, folks that is hot! We will be looking for the shade and hoping to put enough water on our vegetation to keep it alive in this heat. I like to grill outdoors or if I bake, fortunately I have a micro wave convection oven that I can bake in and it doesn't heat up the kitchen. I also like to use the slow cooker as an alternative. What are you doing at your house to stay cool and have some cool meals?

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 596! We had a great 4th of July Celebration here at the cottage, one more year of memories. Great food, fun and fellowship go into any great gathering and folks here in our part of the country sure know how to enjoy all of those. The heat has definitely taken center stage here, we are spending a lot of our time watering plants trying to keep them alive. This is going to be canning week here at the cottage, preserving the harvest. We have some great features this week that I hope you will enjoy, be sure and take a look at them. Thanks so much for coming to the party today and I can't wait to see what you will be sharing with us, we have saved you a place at the table!

I love Mediterranean cuisine, it is always very fresh and lite with flavors that we really enjoy here at the cottage. This is a recipe that takes very little time and ingredients, it all goes into a zip lock bag and stays there overnight. Next day we thread it on the skewers and on to the grill. A few minutes on the grill and enjoy the delicious platter full of goodness!

  Welcome to our July Meal Plans! We are almost ready for the big 4th of July weekend here at the lake. We have so many fun activities in and around our lake area during this time, including lots of wonderful food at our annual picnic. We will be planning some very traditional foods for our celebration. We are hoping for some rain, our gardens and plants are needing watering everyday now because it is getting so dry and hot here. Some of our garden has stopped producing because of the heat. We are sure hoping for some cooler weather and a little rain.