The pear trees are in full bloom and look so beautiful and I was able to pick my first salad from the lettuce bucket today. I just love stepping just outside my kitchen door and picking a fresh salad. I am looking forward to a great spring meal plan for the week with some new recipes and some old classics. Our spring ladies luncheon is this week I have been requested to bring everyone's favorite Ladies Club Salad. I am making some very special cookies today that you will  be seeing on the blog very soon. I need to get this meal plan finished so I can get those cookies done.

Hi everyone and welcome back to Full Plate Thursday! We are so excited here at the cottage to be enjoying some spring weather and to welcome your wonderful spring recipes to the party today. This is the week that we feature our Top Ten Post Views from last weeks party and you the readers have picked some good ones. Be sure and stop by to say hello to these great bloggers! Thanks so much for coming to the party today and being a part of this special community of foodies!

Crab Cakes are a real favorite here at the cottage. I love the serving size of a slider and wanted to make these awesome Nana's Crab Cake Sliders, then added a delicious dill dressing that we will be using for many other recipes. The basic recipe for the Crab Cake Sliders is my Crab Cake recipe that I have used for years, we just made it smaller for the sliders. We used a toasted slider bun and started the foundation with a great Cole slaw with the dill dressing drizzled on top, then the delicious crab cake with more of the dressing drizzled on top, last we topped it with the toasted bun top. The crab cake can be served with or without the bun and would make a great appetizer served with the dill dressing. Our family loves this recipe!

We had planned to cook these country ribs on the grill and enjoy being outdoors, and here came the spring rain. It was the Instant Pot to the rescue, and rescue indeed, these ribs are amazing! The ribs have a great rub and are so tender they were falling apart. I will sure be using this recipe over and over rain or shine!

The sun is shinning and the ground has dried out enough for us to get in the yard and enjoy the beginning of spring. It is fun to make meal plans this time of the year with so many wonderful vegetables that will be coming to our gardens and all the farmers market. We started the spring clean on our screen porch this week and hope to be spending some quality time out there in the months to come.  Hope you are in an area of the country that you can enjoy a little bit of spring that will inspire you to have a wonderful spring meal plan for the week.

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, come in the cottage and find a special place at the table. We are looking forward to a great party today with a table full of great recipes to enjoy. Spring is arriving here at the cottage, we have put the humming bird feeder's out, and the pear tree is budding and starting to bloom, I am so excited to see the first signs of spring! We have some great features from last week and I sure hope you will stop by and say hello to these great bloggers. Thanks so much for coming today, we always look forward to your visits!

I love roasted vegetables, roasting the vegetables brings out such great flavors. This Frittata is a simple blend of roasted vegetables with herbs and ham. We are making it on a sheet pan that keeps it real simple and informal. We have found this to be so convenient for feeding a brunch crowd and a wonderful way to cook for the freezer. We have recently used this recipe to feed a very large crowd for brunch and the folks really loved it. At the cottage we make the recipe and enjoy it for brunch then take the rest and freeze it in serving sizes for the freezer. It is a great grab n go for a busy life style and who doesn't have a day like that from time to time. The combination of vegetables and herbs makes this a delicious brunch dish that I hope you enjoy as much as we have.

If you are a Buffalo Chicken lover you are going to really enjoy this recipe for Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Meatballs. These meatballs are just delicious and can be used as an appetizer, on a sub roll making a great sandwich with a sharp dressing that completes this flavor fest! It takes no time to make the balls then put them into a slow cooker filled with Buffalo goodness and walk away for the magic to happen. When you come back later the balls are ready for you to use for your party, or a covered dish, they will be a hit at any event! A recipe bonus lets you freeze the meatballs up to 3 months and the dressing can be used as a spread, dip or dressing for a salad.

We will be celebrating St. Patrick's Day with family and friends this weekend, looking forward to great food and fellowship. When I make meal plans for this celebration it is hard to choose which favorite recipes to make. I have asked a couple of family members for their ideas so we will see what ends up on the plan. We are coming into the spring storms and rains now, so I will sure have an eye for the weather when planning the meals. As I write this post it is pouring down rain, so we sure won't be planning a cookout for today.

Hello everyone, we are so glad to see you today. We are planning a great party filled with wonderful food with a nod to the Irish and a celebration of St. Patrick's Day foods and decor. We have Spring Breakers at the cottage and we are having a week of  Irish Food this week, enjoying the food and fellowship. Be sure and stop by the great features these bloggers are some of the greatest cooks on the planet!

The Irish make wonderful soda and brown breads and like many others they will gather up the old stale bread and made a lovely dessert. Often times it is a bread pudding, that is filled with not only the wonderful spice from the bread but put into a custard with some lovely sauce and then they serve you the most delicious dessert, from the left over bread. Our Irish Brown Bread Pudding is a recipe that uses the day or two old brown bread, then soaked in a custard base and baked. After it cools just a bit it is cover with a very rich sauce and later served with the sauce on the side. Oh my goodness this is a very special treat that I am proud to serve my family and friends and share with you today.

We had Pork Chops on sale at the market and the cabbage was just beautiful and really fresh. Pork Chops and cabbage make a great combination for a delicious new dish. I really wanted to make something different but full of the flavors that we love with this combination. I had a lot of fun developing this recipe and was very excited about the way it turned out. It has the wonderful flavor of the cabbage and topped with the seasoned braised Pork Chops then we added a thick Mustard Sauce that puts this recipe over the top. I can see this recipe going to some potlucks and diffidently family dinners.

It is spring break time and we are planning some great meals for the breakers. When planning our meals this week we are giving a big nod to our Irish heritage that we will be sharing with the spring breakers. Lots of interesting things going on at the cottage, we are waiting for the weather to clear a bit and then we will hopefully be planting some of our gardens for the year. I have a couple of decorating projects going that I will be sharing with you later. We of course are looking forward to seeing some spring breakers and having some great Irish food and fellowship. 

March has arrived with a lion and we sure hope it will go out as a lamb, we are ready for some good spring weather. We are already seeing signs of spring in our recipes that you are sharing. Last week we had some great recipes, that I know you will want to check out. Hope all of you had a great Fat Tuesday, I can't believe that today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of lent already and we have one of my favorites coming up, St. Patrick's Day! Many thanks to all of you for sharing your amazing recipes, and food related post with us, you truly are the greatest cooks on the planet!

If you are walking into an Irish home after a long days work or an Irish Pub, one of the Irish comfort dishes being served would be Bangers & Mash With Onion Gravy. This is a table favorite of our Irish friends and family, just pure comfort with a great flavor. The Bangers simmered in a flavorful onion gravy then served a top a mound of mashed potatoes, it just doesn't get much better than this. This is one of our family favorites.

This Irish Apple Cake is a very old and primitive, but delicious recipe. I actually found it in some of my Aunt's recipes that had been handed down to me from my Irish Grandmother. The outside of the cake has a nice sweet crust and the inside is a wonderful crumb of spices and lovely bites of apples. I have made the cake for years and it is a hit every time I make it. What better way to celebrate being Irish than with a slice of this fantastic cake!

I am so excited March is here, it has been a long winter. We are looking forward to fresh garden vegetables and spring dishes on the table. This week is Mardi Gras with parades and celebration's in many of the surrounding communities, it is a fun time with fantastic Cajun food. We will sure be tipping our hat to the Cajun food this week.  We should be able to be in our garden by this time but it is to wet to plow, you can read all about our  Garden Forecast: To Wet To Plow . We are very excited to to get started on everything spring!