Hello everyone, here we are once again at Christmas Week. The cottage has not slowed down, it is truly all a buzz with activity. I just got a call that a Grandson we haven't seen in a long while will be coming in this week, oh my I am so excited. Of course I will put everything aside to make his favorite cookies. Our meal plans will be very traditional this year, as so many request have been made from our family. On certain occasions we just want to enjoy our favorites on the table.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, Christmas Edition. We are so excited to see you here today for our special party. We are so busy here at the cottage baking and putting finishing touches on the decorations in every room. We have a special table for all of you today so come on in and find your place, of course we saved you a seat! We had so many wonderful features this week that I hope you really enjoy! I can't wait to see what you will be sharing with us today, I know it will be  great! 

  I love a great slider and our Ham and Cheese Slider With Cranberry Dressing is one of my favorites. This slider has ham and cheese on those wonderful Hawaiian slider rolls with a delicious cranberry dressing. This is a great little sandwich to serve for a party or a light meal for the family. These sliders can often be found on the table for game day events here at the cottage.

  Hello everyone, I hope you have a cup of hot tea or coffee, it is cold here. My little dog Cody is curled up beside me and we are all cozy to make some awesome meal plans for the week. We have a very busy schedule this time of the year and need to stay real organized so we can enjoy each event. I am off to the winter market to see what we can find to make some of the recipes we will be cooking next week. Only 10 days to Christmas!

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 724. Come on in the cottage and get warm by the fire, stop by the beverage center and get a cup of  Retro Holiday Punch . We are happy to share some awesome features from last weeks party for you to enjoy. Thanks so much for coming to the party today, we have saved you a special place at the table and can hardly wait to see what you are sharing.

   Gifts From Miz Helen's Kitchen the 11th annual publication of our most popular gifts for Christmas. I love receiving a homemade gift that someone has put so much love and work into the finished product. We often time give gifts from our garden that is actually a year long effort. There are always the favorites every year and then we like to add some of the new things that folks will enjoy! It is with great joy that I present the gifts from our kitchen for this year.

My Cherry Fluff Dessert is one of my favorite go to desserts. The recipe has just a few ingredients, and takes no time to prepare it. This is a delicious dessert that can go to the nicest social pot-luck or serve your family on a weeknight. It is great with or without the garnish, but our group sure loves that extra goodness on top! This is a very versatile dessert that is a winner every time!

Hello everyone and welcome to December! We are so grateful to be here in a nice cozy cottage today. I am looking forward to planning meals for the very busy season that we are in. It is during busy seasons that I enjoy being a meal planner because it saves me money, time, energy and my friends and family have a balanced meal at the cottage. We are putting the finishing touches on  our Christmas decorating, everything is looking so beautiful! 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 723 and welcome December! The Christmas spirit is everywhere we turn. We are putting the finishing touches on our Christmas decorations here at the cottage. There is that little kid in me that just love's the Christmas season. Our food is a big part of the celebrations and  I am sure looking forward to all the wonderful holiday links that you will be sharing today and in the next few weeks. Be sure and visit the  7th Annual Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange  while you are here on the site. 

  Our Cheesy Broccoli Casserole is a delicious side dish that even the kids love. The recipe is made with fresh broccoli, a creamy cheese sauce with just the right seasons. It bakes in the oven until we have a nicely topped casserole. This lovely casserole can be frozen for up to 3 months. This casserole is a big winner every time!

I am so excited to welcome you to the 7th Annual Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange Linky Party for 2024! I have enjoyed so many of your cookie recipes from the first 6 parties and I really treasure them. As I am making your recipes it reminds me of you and the special friendship that we enjoy in this very special blogging community. At the end of the party, we will have all shared with each other a memory and a part of ourselves that truly is a lasting gift. Thanks so much for sharing your cookie recipes with us, we cherish your cookie recipes and YOU!  I Can't Wait To Try Your Cookie Recipes, Lets Get Started!

  Hello everyone, we had an amazing Thanksgiving and I sure hope you did to. Sometimes after a big holiday feast I really don't' want to think about food for a while, but then I realize that my family may be hungry. By tomorrow we will be having freezing temperatures, so I am looking for warm cozy comfort this week. It will be fun to see what I come up with.

  Welcome to an early Thanksgiving edition of Full Plate Thursday, 722. Today we will feature our Top Ten Post from last weeks party as is our custom on  the last Thursday of the month. We are in a very busy season for all of our wonderful bloggers and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your amazing post with us each week. You are all very special to me and I count you among my many blessings! Hope you enjoy the party!

  Hello everyone, we are planning a very special Thanksgiving week here at the cottage. Some of our family is arriving today and by the big day we will have a full house. Meal planning is very important for me to stay organized, and have some great meals for my family and friends during a holiday time. We are a very traditional family and most of our Thanksgiving recipes have been a part of our family for a very long time. I have been stocking up for a while and have already started some cooking that is frozen and ready to go.  Happy Cooking To All of You!

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 721 it is really good to see you here today. We are enjoying a wonderful fall with all the colors on the trees and the farmers markets with pumpkins and other fall vegetables. There are so many fall festivals there just isn't enough time to attend them all. We had a great party here last week and we are featuring some of those awesome post today. I sure hope you will stop by those bloggers and say hello! We have a  couple of very important announcements this week so be sure and read them, you don't want to miss out! Thanks so much for coming to the party today and enjoy the party!

At the end of the feast day, we stand and access the leftovers and then decide what to do with them. Through the years we have developed some of our families favorite left over recipes for Thanksgiving. The first thing we do is debone the turkey and place in 3 cup portions, then bag them in freezer bags. We freeze the bags and they are ready for our recipe any time. Boil the bones with some vegetables and you will have an amazing broth that you can freeze for soups and stews. These are great cost savers for your food dollars.

Hello everyone, great to see you here on the screen porch with me on this beautiful fall morning. Planning our meal plans is so much fun this time of the year with a bounty of the harvest. Can you believe that it is just one more week and we will be planning our meals for Thanksgiving. We have some house guest that will be arriving at the end of the week, we can hardly wait to see them! 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 720. We are so excited to see you here at the party today. We have a fire in the pit so come on around, it is such a beautiful fall day to enjoy together. Our party last week had so many delicious links, it is really hard to pick the features, but we have some great ones  today. I can hardly wait to see what you will be bringing today, thanks so much for sharing with us!

  This recipe for Baked Glazed Apple Fritters is a very special treat for any brunch or breakfast. We enjoy a great brunch or breakfast on the weekend when we can enjoy some time to relax and just be together. I just love making a  special treat for those times to give some extra love to my friends and family. This is a very simple recipe to make with just a few ingredients and doesn't take to much time. The flavors are amazing!

Hello everyone, it is meal planning day. I am excited to sit down with all of you and take a look at all the wonderful fall recipes. I have some wonderful fall and winter greens coming on in my Veggie Pod. I have kale and collards that will be ready for harvest very soon. I just love using fall and winter greens in special dishes.  We are having some rain so it sounds like a good week for some yummy soup, I am hungry already!

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 719 and the fun month of November! November is a true foodie month with so many warm comforting foods to bring to our tables. We had such a fun party last week and I have brought some of those awesome post to feature for our party today. I always look forward to Thursday and the excitement of sharing all of the goodness that you will be bringing to the table. Come on in and find your place at the table, we saved you a seat!

  Old Fashioned Apple Salad is one of my favorite salad's for any occasion. This is a recipe that has few ingredients and delivers a big flavor. This salad has been at our family gatherings for as long as I can remember. The salad brings back warm memories of family and friends.

Hello November and welcome to meal planning with me this week. I am able to be out on the screen porch with a sweater and have been loving the beautiful fall weather we are having. The seasons and the weather are always a gage for my meal plans as I consider myself to be a seasonal cook. That explains why we have so many garden to table recipes, gardeners tend to be seasonal cooks. We have a lot of rain coming this next week so I will be looking to some real cozy recipes and maybe a couple of surprises.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 718 and the last party for October. On our last party of the month we always feature the TOP TEN VIEWS from last weeks party. We have some great features from your views last week so we will have a great party today. Our very best wishes to all the little trick or treaters out there and stay safe! Thanks so much for coming to the party today, we have saved a special place at the table just for you!

November is such a great time to use wonderful garden vegetables that are in season. Of course one of the first is Pumpkin then one of my favorites Sweet Potatoes. Thanksgiving is our big holiday this month and a food lovers holiday!  We see pumpkins just about everywhere we go, they are in the markets, pumpkin patches, and front porches. I use them for decoration, but mostly love them in a delicious recipe on my table. Sweet Potatoes are one of the farmers crops here in our area and we see Sweet Potatoes in the farm stands, back of pick trucks, and in our very own gardens. November is a great food month to enjoy!

Hello everyone, what a fun week to make meal plans. We have so many fun events coming up in our little community. There are festivals and trunk or treat opportunities in every corner of the community. It is a great time to fellowship with neighbors and friends. I don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen with so many places to go so I have pulled recipes that I feel will help me with that goal. My inventories in the barn, pantry and freezers are great today, so I won't have to spend a lot of time or money at the market place.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday,717.  I am so happy to see all of you today on such a beautiful fall day. We had a fantastic party last week with some special features from some very talented bloggers. I sure hope you enjoy the features that are featured here today. I can't wait to see what you will be sharing at our party today, come on in, we have saved you a seat at the table!

  Ranch House Taco Soup is a delicious soup that our family loves. My sister-in law gave me this recipe years ago and it has been one of our favorites. The soup is very easy to put together and is thick and hearty. We like to serve it with some shredded sharp cheddar cheese, and taco chips. If you should have left overs, it freezes well for up to 3 months.

Hello everyone, come join me while we make our meal plan for the week. I have on my warm clothes today and am about to make a fire in the firepit, it is very chilly. That crisp fall air makes me want to cook warm cozy meals which I am sure looking at this week. It is just that time of the year, when the slow cooker gets lots of attention and I don't mind heating up the  kitchen with the oven. We are looking forward to Oktoberfest Celebrations, this week that  will be very special!

Hello everyone and welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 716! The party is going and we are enjoying the great outdoors today. Come on back to the garden area, we have the table all set and have saved you a seat! We had a great party last week and we have amazing features from that party to share with you today. I can't wait to see what you will be sharing with us today and hope that you have fun at the party! 

  These Baked Pumpkin Frosted Donuts: Regular & Mini give the whole family a special treat. The little ones really enjoy the mini size donuts and of course Mom & Dad love the larger size. This is a very simple recipe and takes very little time and a plate full of delicious donuts are on the table. This is a great pumpkin treat anytime of the year, and don't forget the sprinkles!

  Hello everyone, I am so happy to have you here today as we prepare our meal plan for next week. We are really enjoying the fall weather that we are having here and very grateful that we have not had any storms to deal with at this time. I have a busy week coming up so I will be looking at some recipes that will give me less time in the kitchen on certain days. 

Hello and welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 715. I am very excited to see you here at the party today. Each week we feature some of the most popular post from the last weeks post, that we all look forward to each week. We have some of the most talented food bloggers that come to our party each week, it is an amazing blogging community. We are out on the flagstone patio today, we have a nice fire to sit around and enjoy our party, as always we have saved you a seat at the table.

Our Retro Texas School House Brownies are worth the wait for a great afterschool treat! When my kids were in school (a very long time ago) my friend gave me this recipe to make brownies for a school bake sale. I ended up making two batches of the brownies, because our family ate so many of them. This is without a doubt the best brownie that I have ever had. 

  Happy October y'all! The fall days are cooler, the leaves are starting to turn and the State Fair of Texas is open. I am sitting on the screen porch planning next weeks meal plans and I am so happy you can join me today. I will definitely be looking to include some of the favorite fall comfort recipes this week. This will be contingent on the availability of the products to prepare the recipes. Our Farmers Markets are full of amazing fall products right now, I can't wait go to the market!

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 714 and welcome October! Fall is officially here and we are enjoying some amazing fall food and all the fun that goes with it. I am so excited that you are here to enjoy the party with us today. We have some great features from last weeks party, I sure hope you will enjoy all the features! I hope you have time to visit the country and take a walk down a country road to enjoy the beauty of fall. Thanks so much for coming today and we sure hope you will come back soon!

What's In Season and How Can I Use It? That is the question that we address in our Food and Recipe Basket. Fall garden production is hardy here because we still have temperatures that allow production to continue. Although we still have some of our summer production available, some of the all time favorite fall products are ready to harvest in the month of October. There was truly a bumper crop of squash this year, the apples and pears have been abundant. I love all these fruits and vegetable's and look forward to making the recipes that we will be presenting to you for our October Food and Recipe Basket.

Hello everyone, fall meal planning has officially arrived with cooler temperatures and rain. I am so excited to be sitting on the screen porch again, the construction is finished, so I am back at my favorite writing place. Earlier today I took my round of food inventories for the cold bins in the barn, pantry and frozen foods. A running inventory is a very important part of meal planning. The inventory gives us an overview of what is on hand for some great meal plans for the week. 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 713 and our TOP TEN FEATURES from last weeks party. Every month the last week of the month the post with the most views are the top ten features. I always look forward to see your top features. We are really enjoying the beautiful fall weather, with cooler temperatures and even some nice rain. I invite you to share some of my  Cheesy Burger Chowder , we saved a place at the table for you!  

  I remember making and eating this Onion Soup Chicken and Rice Casserole back in the late 1950's. I was going through some of my older recipes that are budget friendly and this is the one that caught my eye. I could almost taste this casserole, it is delicious as well as comforting. It really goes together and is on the table in no time. It is a great casserole for the family or a great covered dish for a dinner party.

  I am so happy to see you here  today as we plan the meals and recipes for next week. It will be a special week here at the cottage as one of our daughters from Portland, Or. will be here visiting us. Of course I will be making some of her favorites and enjoying time in the kitchen with her. The weather is beautiful, I just love the fall foods that are seasonal at this time. I hope you are able to take a walk and enjoy some of the beautiful bounty of fall.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 712. What a great party we are planning for you today. We are sharing some fantastic features from last weeks party that you will want to be sure to visit. We have some of the most talented food bloggers that come to our party every week and we are always excited to see each and every one of you! I have saved you a seat at the table today, we can't wait to see what you will be sharing with us today!

  I love making a great pot of chowder, it is a perfect layering of flavors. These layers of flavors simmered together bring a bowl of goodness to the table that is very special. Our Cheesy Burger Chowder is made one layer at a time with vegetables and seasons that marry well in the simmering pot of chowder. This is our number one chowder request from family and friends, a winner every time!

Hello everyone, it is sure great to see you here today. We are able to really enjoy our gardens right now. We don't have a big harvest of vegetable's but our herbs are really doing well right now. All the high schools here are gearing up for Friday night football, fall is definitely in the air! I love fall foods as we lean a little more into comfort foods that I sometimes call Grandma foods. I am looking at some great recipes for the upcoming week.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 711! I am so happy to see you here today on this beautiful fall day. The official fall date is September 22, 2024  and I think we have a really good start here. We had a great party last week with wonderful post that are featured this week. I hope that you enjoy all the features, be sure and stop by these talented bloggers site and say hello.  Thanks so much for coming to the party today, I can't wait to see what you are sharing!

We love our Tex-Mex here at the cottage. Our Taco Tuesday Casserole is a giant taco in one pan. Baked to perfection with cheese, onion and crisp tortilla chips. We topped this one with some fresh avocado chunks and then of course our home canned salsa. This casserole goes together real fast and is on the table for a hungry family. 

  Hello everyone, I am so excited to see you today and make a delicious meal plan for us. I love it that our weather is so much cooler this week, we have sure enjoyed some nice rain and just being able to relax a bit after the August heat. I have some great recipes that I am looking at, I will be interested in which one my husband chooses from the group this week. Sometimes he surprises me with his picks. Now  that school is started I know that some of you want some meals that will make it easier to put dinner on the table, after a long school day.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 710! September is here and it has brought some great weather with it. Please join us in the great outdoors today, we are going to enjoy this beautiful weather we are having. We have some awesome features from last weeks party that I hope you will enjoy. We have saved you a seat at the table and I can't wait to see what you are bringing to share with us today. Thanks so much for coming we always love having you here!

Welcome to September with some of the garden harvest winding down for this season.  We have several traditional end of season recipes that we will be sharing with you. Some of the produce that we enjoyed in early June and July has given in to the heat and now we are have only the hardy producers to harvest. We are so blessed to live in an area that has some of the best farmers markets that keep us supplied with most garden vegetables the year round.

Good Morning everyone, I sure hope that you are enjoying your Labor Day weekend. My goodness my husband and I were just talking about how fast the summer went by this year, but here we are. Our meal plans are fun this time of the year as we transition into the fall season. It is still warm enough to enjoy some grilling time, but then we enjoy a great bowl of soup on a cooler evening. This week I will be visiting our farmers market so we will see what ends up in my cart to help with the meal plans this week.