Good evening and welcome to Full Plate Thursday 704! My goodness what a whirlwind week we have had here at the cottage. I have been celebrating my 85th birthday for a  whole week now. Plus I am celebrating along with so many of you the 14th year for Miz Helen's Country Cottage! I am so humbled that all of you have supported this party and my blog through the years, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you! This is our TOP TEN FEATURES WEEK, be sure and check out the features that all of you picked with your page views from last weeks party! I and so happy you are here today and I can hardly wait to see what you are sharing with us today!

  Our Lemon Garlic Flank Steak is delicious and so tender you can cut it with a fork. We begin the recipe with a delicious marinate that is full of herb's and a lemon and balsamic base. We love putting it on our outdoor grill, but in case of rain you can always grill it on the stove top grill. We enjoy serving this recipe with roasted vegetables. This is a very special meal that our family loves!

  Hello everyone, it is so good to see you here today. I really enjoy meal planning this time of the year when we have so many fresh fruits and vegetables available. We are having a lovely summer right now. Yes we are having some really hot temperatures, however we are getting some nice rain showers along to cool us down. I love to grill out this time of the year, but our meal plan will not include grilling out when rain is forecast. We do have some fresh vegetables in our garden and the farmers markets are packed out right now with wonderful produce.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 703 I am so happy to see you here today. Come on back to the back patio, we have some fans set up under the trees. We will enjoy the great outdoors and have fun enjoying the amazing fun and food that all of you will be bringing today. I always look forward to Thursday to see what all of you will be sharing for the party! Thanks so much for being here and God bless you!

This rice pudding recipe is a winner no matter what the occasion or the weather. Through the years this has been one of my go-to recipes for a busy day and the need for a great dessert. This is a great recipe to take to a cover dish meal and always a hit for a family supper.  Just put all the ingredients into the slow cooker and the magic will happen, its great!

Our Baked Berry Oatmeal has become one of the favorite breakfast and brunch recipes in this past year. This is so easy to put together, comforting and absolutely delicious. Our little Grands just love this recipe and would be a great dish to prepare for school days. We have found that it freezes well which is a big plus! 

  Hello everyone, I am so happy to see you here today. Our area is just coming out of the after affects of Hurricane Beryl. Some folks in our area are still without power and internet. My husband and I are so grateful and blessed that we still have power and the internet. I have gone through my recipes and looked at the freezer inventory, plus had a look at the pantry. As I plan this weeks meal plans I will be looking at the peak of summer and its wonderful harvest that comes from the garden to table here at the cottage.

Hello and welcome to Full Plate Thursday! We are so happy to see you here at the party today. I sure hope you had a great 4th of  July celebration, we had a great celebration here in our community. We are getting the wind and rain from Hurricane Beryl. We will get lots of rain and some wind, we are good here no damage here. We are headed for the screen porch for our party today, just enjoy our cozy porch out of the rain and wind. We have some great features from last weeks party so be sure and visit those talented bloggers!

  Our garden is busting with beautiful vegetables and delicious ideas for garden to table recipes. Our Italian Summer Soup is delicious, it is a blend of summer squash, zucchini, and other summer herbs and vegetables. We are having some rainy weather as the storms roll in off the coast. The temperatures drop and this soup is a real winner. It can be frozen ahead of the  storm and then reheated to perfection.

  What's In Season and How Do I Use It? J uly is here with its parades, fireworks and great fresh foods. Many of the foods that we have had in our basket for the past two months are still producing and can be found at many of the farmers markets. Some of the foods this month are produced here in the south, however my granddaughter that lives in New York can often times find some of them. Some of the recipes that I will share with you this month have been passed down in our family for generations, I hope you enjoy them.

  Hello everyone, I sure hope you had a good 4th of July. We had a awesome celebration and now looking forward to making our meal plans for the next week. We will be looking at cooler temperatures next week which we will welcome. We have lots of great fresh vegetables in our garden and at the Farmers Market. I hope you are enjoying your summer and enjoying making your meal plans for your friends and family.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 701 and our special 4th of July edition! I sure hope that you are going to enjoy your 4th of July celebration. We had a great party last week which gave us some amazing features to help us have a great celebration today. Thanks so much for coming to the party today, I can't wait to see what you are sharing with us. Come on back to the patio it is real shady and we have cold beverages waiting for you. Enjoy!

What a fun week to make meal plans for a very special holiday. We will be celebrating the 4th of July this week. We have celebrations all of the lake area from air shows to country fairs and back yard Bar B Ques. Great ways of celebrating our freedom and our love for the all American foods. We will be enjoying some of our traditional foods this week and I have some of our family favorite recipes ready to place on the meal plan.

  Welcome to the last party of the month and our Top Ten Features! Wow this last party of each month sure rolls around pretty fast sometimes. You picked some great post with your page views for this weeks party!

  Our Fresh Strawberry Dip is a perfect appetizer for a party of one or twenty. It is very cold and refreshing, very simple to make with just a few ingredients. It is one of our favorites here at the cottage. I like to serve this with a few mini vanilla wafers and a little salty Pretzel Crisps. I just love that salty and sweet combination. You can prepare this recipe the night before and it is all ready for your guest the next afternoon or evening. 

Hello everyone, it is good to be sitting on the screen porch with you while we make this meal plan for next week. It is a beautiful morning which inspires me to put together some great meal plans for this summer season. We actually have some vegetables that are  growing in the garden and in the Veggie Pod. I visited our Farmers Market last week and they have a great selection of everything I will need to make the recipes that I have picked out for this week. 

  Hello everyone and welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 699! I sure hope you had a great Fathers Day weekend, we had a  great celebration here at the cottage.  We had a  very special party here with all of you last week and we have some outstanding features to share with you from the party. Thank you so much for coming to the party today, I have saved you a seat at the table, now fill your plate and enjoy yourself!

  A cold rainy day can happen anytime, spring, summer, fall or winter. My Baked Beef Tips With Gravy is one of my favorite recipes to serve on that kind of day. This is a budget friendly recipe and so easy to put together. Just let it simmer in the oven and when you take it out it is ready to serve a hungry family. There will be enough for seconds as most will want a second round. I like to serve this recipe on top of creamy mashed potatoes with a fresh garden salad.

Hello everyone and a special greeting to all the Fathers on this Fathers Day weekend. We are expecting a full house this weekend to honor my husband and some other fathers in our family. We are planning on a fantastic time with delicious food. Great food requires careful attention. Meal planning allows me to have a more organized meal time and gives me more time to enjoy family and friends at the event. 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 698. I am so excited to see you here today, we have some really great features to share with you today. We are having some beautiful days and our little plants are loving it. We are actually planting some late garden that we feel sure will make harvest. It will be fun to watch the crops and even better to enjoy the harvest on our table. We are having our party on the garden patio where we can really enjoy the great outdoors. I have saved you a place at the table and thanks so much for coming to the party today!

  Our Potluck Pasta Salad is a perfect salad for any potluck gathering. This salad is easy to put together and has fresh garden vegetables which makes it a very healthy salad to take. We live in a country lake community, our lake shore line touches several small communities. We interact with several of those communities and participate in great potluck gatherings during the course of a month. This has been one of my favorite salad's to take. I rarely ever bring any back home with me.

Hello everyone, it is so good to see you here on this sunny morning! We are actually going to be able to have a cook-out and enjoy being outdoors with no rain for a few days. I have made a inventory of our pantry and freezers, unfortunately we don't have that many fresh vegetables in our garden. We will be making a trip to the local farmers market to fill the order for our meal plan for the week. It will be fun to see what the market has to offer this week. 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 697 and the month of June. We are going to have a great party today with the beginning of the summer season. We have some awesome features from last weeks party that I sure hope you enjoy. I love the summer food season from so many garden to table recipes and beautiful photo's of fresh foods. It is so good to see you here today, we have saved you a place at the table!

    This month we have some great foods in season that go from garden to table in the very best of fresh food. We get to spend a lot of time in the garden but if we are not growing the fresh fruit or vegetable that is in season, then we are off to the nearest farmers market. Some farmers markets are open year round now, but most are open by now. I love to carry all these fresh foods into my kitchen to create wonderful recipes for my family and friends.

Good morning, it is a beautiful June day to enjoy planning a great meal plan for next week. I am so happy you can join me here on the screen porch today, ya'll know how I love the screen porch. We have had some pretty weather around our part of the world this spring, and we are so grateful for the rain, and the fact that we have not had any damage from surrounding storms. The weather looks like we will be able to do a little grilling this week and enjoy some fresh vegetables from the garden and the farmers market.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 696 and our Top Ten Features edition. On the last party of the month we feature your top ten views from last weeks party! You sure picked some great post for this weeks Top Ten, I hope you enjoy them.  I hope that all of you had a safe Memorial Day with lots of good food and fellowship. Thanks so much for coming to the party today, we always look forward to your visits!

Hello everyone, I am posting the meal plan early this week in hopes that it will help you with your meal plan for the Memorial Day Weekend. We have got a great meal plan for our remembrance day picnic here at the cottage. I am so grateful to be a meal planner so that I don't have to run around at the last minute trying to figure out what to feed the folks. Our stores are so crowded on the holiday weekends that often times the shelves will be empty if you don't get there early. I have already done my shopping and have even completed some meal prep, we are all ready to enjoy our friends and family along with some great food!

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday 695, come on in and find a place at the table. We are having our party on the main patio today so find your place at the table, we are saving you a seat! We have some great features for you to enjoy today from last weeks party. We are celebrating Memorial Day here at the cottage this coming weekend. We often times have a time of remembrance for all of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms that we enjoy here in our country. I really appreciate you coming to the party today. Please have a safe Memorial Day weekend with great food and fellowship!

Memorial Day is a great day of remembrance here in our lake community. There are many festivities to mark the day, with personal picnics and community food fest. Through the years we have had cook-outs and picnics here at the cottage. These are some of the Bar-B-Que Recipes that we enjoy when we have a Memorial Day remembrance picnic. 

  Hello  everyone, I sure hope you are having a fantastic weekend. I have been working on the meal plan for this week and had a draft. Somehow the draft was lost in all the lighting storms we had. So this week is a little late, but I am determine to post this meal plan today! We are so grateful for all the spring rains that have filled our lake and rivers, and equally so we are so grateful to have a few days of sunshine to dry us out just a bit. I have already started my meal plan for today and it is going to be delicious! 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 694. I am so happy to welcome you to the party today. Please join me on the garden patio, we can enjoy our party and look at the beautiful wild flower garden and enjoy some fresh vegetables. We have some very talented bloggers that are a part of our blogging community here and I am always so happy to feature their post every week. Be sure and stop by their blogs to check out their great post! Thanks so much for coming to the party today, your visits are always so special to me and others!

This Chicken With Broccoli and Rice Casserole recipe is a little unusual. Through the years I have learned to save and repurpose every morsel of food that could be saved or used in some way. This casserole is made up with mostly left overs and you would never know that it wasn't made fresh today. In today's economy the food prices are very high and still climbing. I try and help young families with growing their own vegetables, planning the meals and economizing wherever possible. This is a recipe that I made for a study group for young homemakers.

Hello everyone, glad to see you here on the Mothers Day weekend. I have been so blessed to be able to hear from so many of my  friends and family already. My daughter is planning a lovely luncheon for me and her Mother-In Law, it will be so nice. My husband has finished his project of restoring our flagstone patio and it is beautiful, we just love that area of our property. I am checking the weather and reviewing my freezer and pantry inventories. I am about to make some meal plan decisions with some great spring recipes.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 693! I am so excited to see all of you on this upcoming Mothers Day Weekend. We are planning a great party for you today and surely hope that you will love all the features from last weeks party. I always look forward to all the wonderful post that you will be sharing at the party today. Thanks so much for coming to the party, you are a very important part of our blogging community!

  Lemon Surprise Cake is a very easy recipe to make. This is a lemon lovers dream dessert. The cake has a great lemon surprise on the inside and is topped with a creamy marshmallow topping. This is one of those recipes that can be served for a special occasion or a weeknight family meal. 

  Hello everyone and a big welcome to May! Meal planning is going to be so much fun this month. We get to plan for Cinco de Mayo which is this weekend, Mothers Day which is next weekend, and then Memorial Day at the end of the month. We are pretty excited here at the cottage, we actually have plants growing in our garden and soon will have more. There is nothing like those wonderful garden to table recipes that we all enjoy.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 692 and open the door to May. I love the month of May with some very special holidays in May. We had a great party last week to close the month out. Some of those post are featured here today and I sure hope you enjoy them. Come in and make yourself at home, I can't wait to see what you will be sharing with us today. Thanks so much for coming to the party today, I always look forward to seeing you here.

  May is such busy month with spring in full swing, wild flowers blooming, garden vegetables being harvested and planted. We have a special basket full of fun celebrations where we will find some really great fresh food. The seasonal foods that we will be talking about this month are currently  harvested in our area. Most of the products can be found in Farmers Markets across the area. Our recipes have been handed down though the generations of my family and are linked on this blog.

  Slow Cooker Chicken Fajitas recipe is simple and delicious, full of Tex-Mex flavor. This is a perfect busy day recipe when you need something special in the evening.  These Fajitas are tasty and tender enough to take to a great covered dish dinner. Just add a little lime wedge, some cilantro and cheese, and you have a fantastic Chicken Fajita!

Last week while planning our meal plan for the week, I was having a lovely spring morning on my screen porch and enjoying looking through my recipes. This week I am getting a really late start on writing this post. We have been having storms all afternoon and are still under a tornado watch until late tonight. There have been some really bad storms in our area, but thank God we have been spared so far. I am going to finish this post so I can make sure that you get it first thing in the morning. 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 691 and our Top Ten Feature post for the month!   The last Thursday of every month we feature the Top Ten Views from last weeks party. We have some great features that you picked and I sure hope that you enjoy these talented bloggers! We  are having so much fun here at the cottage, we have had abundant rainfall and everything here is green, blooming and beginning to look like a beautiful spring day. It is my pleasure to welcome you to our party each week and I always look forward to see what you will be sharing with us. Come on in and make yourself comfortable, we have saved you a place at the table!

  My little dog Cody is chasing a squirrel up the tree, the birds are signing and it is a beautiful spring day here at the cottage. They moved the cattle in the pasture across from the cottage today and it is always so peaceful to watch them graze in the pasture. It is great to be sitting on the screen porch again with all my recipes, my food inventory and a cup of coffee. I am ready to get started on this meal plan for the week, and I sure am glad you can join me today.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 690! I am so excited to see you here today. We are having a beautiful spring day here at the cottage, we invite you to come back to the garden patio to join us for a big party today. We had a great party last week and have some great features today that we hope you enjoy. Be sure and stop by these talented bloggers site and say hello. We have a great party planned today and can't wait to see what you will be sharing, come on in we have saved you a seat at the table!

Hello everyone, it is sure good to be back this week with all of you sharing our meal plan for the week. Spring time has arrived with beautiful sunny days and then some rainy days which gives us lots of weather choices.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 689! It is so good to see you here today. I sure hope you have had a great week. Did you get to participate in the Solar Eclipse on Monday, it was such a special event. We have some awesome features from last weeks party today and I sure hope you will enjoy them. Don't you just love this time of the year when there are so many wonderful recipes to make with such fresh ingredients. Thanks so much for coming to the party today, we saved you a seat and can hardly wait to see what you will be sharing!

  We are never really able to predict the outcome of any event in our life, but the outcome of this solar eclipse was very unexpected for me. I went into the event with many questions which I expressed in  Celebrating Our Path Of Totality, Texas Style .

We have been reading about and hearing about the total solar eclipse for well over a year now. It was about 6 months ago that some of the news sources here began to report that our community was in fact in the Path Of Totality. Plans were underway by the commercial and private communities to provide lodging and food sources for the thousands of people that were going to be converging on our little country and lake communities. 

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 688 and welcome to April! We had some great links last week at the party and I have a surprise for you today. The viewers are helping me pick the features with the most views.

  What is in season now and how can I use it? That is the question that started our Food and Recipe Basket. This month we are looking at some wonderful April fruits and vegetables that are in some of our gardens and also in the markets. I love looking forward to all the fresh fruits and vegetables that we will be having in the spring and summer months.

We will be welcoming April in just a few days. I love making meal plans this time of the year, with new green life everywhere. We will be having a large family gathering this Easter Sunday so we will have lots of traditional foods that our family loves for that special meal. We have actually been working in the yard and doing a little planting in the garden. I love the transition of the season .