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!

We are busy at the cottage this week, getting ready for the 4th of July celebrations around our community. Our little community has an annual parade with all the kids on their bikes and all the Grandpas pulling little wagons behind their riding mowers with the grands waving the flags. It truly is an All-American day. Our ladies club sponsors a country store and I will be taking some of my jelly to donate and of course a cherry cobbler. When we are enjoying holidays and house guest it is a very important time to make sure that we have a meal plan in place. I am going to finish this plan and head to the garden to gather some of the produce that I will be needing.

It is our last party for the month of June and it is time for the Top Ten Post from last weeks party. Every month we feature the Top Ten Post with the most page views on the last week of the month and this month we have some great post that you have picked! I really look forward to this party every week to see all of you and enjoy all the wonderful post you share with us. We are out on the garden patio today to enjoy the beautiful vegetables that are in the garden right now, so grab a basket and help yourself! I can't wait to see you at the party!

We all love our hot dogs here in American and for some of our patriotic celebrations we just have to have our hot dogs! Lots of times when we host an event it is burgers and dogs and it's not just the kids that have the dogs. My favorite way to serve the hot dogs is to present many different toppings and let everyone build their own hot dog. I can't wait to build one of my favorite hot dogs!

Ice Cream Ice Cream We All Scream For Ice Cream! That is sure the chant that goes up from some of our family. As a matter of fact my husband's nick name is "Blue Bell Man" he has to have his Ice Cream for his special treat everyday. This is a very special berry filled ice cream, that our entire family enjoys. This recipe is so easy and takes no time and it is in the freezer, it is sure worth the wait while it freezes!