We are excited here at the cottage to be going into the first week of October. Our Farmers Market are beginning to look like fall  has arrived. I have enjoyed going through my fall recipes looking for our family favorites and adding new recipes that our family will enjoy. I will finalize my fall pantry inventory this week and restock the items that I use more in the fall months. I like  to keep a fully stocked pantry so that I have the ability to prepare meals and meal planning in a more efficient way. I am about to take a very flavorful apple pie out of the oven so lets get started!

We finally got some rain and are so grateful for it. Our Granddaughter who lives in Conklin, NY got so much rain it flooded their basement and her husband had to be rescued from the roof of the barn. Thank God everyone is safe, and we thank all those that were praying with us for their safety. I am headed out to the garden, although there isn't much left of it for this year, most of it just burned up. We will have some garden vegetables that will come to the table to make great meal for the family this week. Hug your kids and Grandbabies when you can, life is full of bumps in the road.

We are praying for rain here, when I walk across parts of my grass it is just like powder. We have completely lost parts of our garden we just didn't have enough water to keep it alive. We are heading to the grill and the slow cooker this week and looking for a lot of flavor in the meal plans. I may have to visit a Farmers Market for some of my vegetables, but we have a great market near by. I am headed out to take the inventories of garden vegetables, freezer foods so we can get started with out meal plans.

We have been enjoying some great rain today and it has really cooled things down a bit giving me a chance to sit on the screen porch and spend time with you. I sure am glad that we can take the time and plan meals every week, there are so many advantages to meal planning. For me meal planning helps me stay organized and gives a little more structure to nutritional requirements for me and my family. It also saves time, because we are not roaming up and down the supper market isles wondering Whats For Dinner Next Week.

I am taking a break sitting on the porch and sipping sweet tea, while I work on this meal plan. It is good to sit down for a bit, we are harvesting onions from the garden today and it is quiet a process. We pull the onions, then clean them, than hang them in the barn to dry and then we will use them. I rarely have to buy onions from the market. With all the fresh vegetables available right now it sure is easy to make a meal plan, I just love the vegetables.

Welcome April! Our cottage has been all a buzz this past week getting ready for this Easter weekend. It is great to make meal plans for holiday times when so many friends and family will be in and out of the cottage enjoying a real time of fellowship. We will have some things in our garden that will be ready for the big day so I will be sure and include those fresh vegetables when we can. We will be doing our marketing early for this meal plan so we will have plenty of time to spend with our guest.

I like to keep a current inventory of my cold bins, pantry and freezer, it really helps when planning my weekly meals and making the marketing list.   I went out to the barn earlier this morning to check out my root vegetable inventory, we keep our fall harvest vegetables in cold bins through the winter. I can tell that spring will soon be here because I am starting to run out of some items. I sure am glad that you stopped to have tea with me while we work on this meal plan, its always fun to be in the kitchen with a friend.

Making meal plans for holidays are always fun and this week we are planning for Valentine Day. If the day falls on a week night, then I ask my husband what he would like and then I try to make it special. If the day falls on the weekend, then I know that we will be going out to dinner. As I look out over the pasture this morning it is solid white and really beautiful, with the heavy frost covering everything, it is very cold here, so I am thinking of food that warms the tummy and the soul. Oh my lets get this meal plan started, I could chat all morning.

Happy New Year Everyone! I know that some of you are really experiencing some very cold weather with snow drifts up to a foot or more. It has been cold here but not enough snow to have fun in. Icy Cold weather really calls for lots of comfort food and meals that will stay with us through the cold weather. I am curled up with a great cup of Hot Chocolate and ready to make a meal plan for next week.

November is sure here with very cold temperatures, making us want to seek out recipes that warm up our cottage and let us feel comfort. We have been involved in a couple of home improvement projects that we are trying to finish before the holidays, so I want my kitchen time this week to be simple and delicious recipes. This is really one of the advantages to having a meal plan, I won't have to take the time to "wonder" Whats For Dinner Next Week.

I have been so busy enjoying this weather and our little house guest that I almost forgot to take my pantry inventory to prepare my meal plan for the week. I always take my pantry and refrigerator inventory before making my meal plan, then I am using what I have on hand and won't be buying unnecessary products. We have been  having so much fun at the cottage this week, we are dog sitting for our Granddogs Claire and Chole, little weenie  dogs. Max loves having company and we love to watch the interaction of the 3 musketeers. Lets get started on this meal plan before these little darlings lead me away again.

Fall is officially here and we are beginning to really enjoy some of the fall days. It is hard to believe that with all the rain that we have had we are currently under a burn ban so no fires in the fire pit just now. That means no S'mores after the game on Friday night. I really enjoy planning a fall menu and looking for a way to enjoy those warm cozy spices of the season.

School has started here in our area, and there is always a certain energy that comes with the starting of school. The little communities are filled with back to school signs and there is talk of the first football game. When we make our meal plans we will be looking at some of the school activities that we attend along with community events that happen this time of the year. Meal planning allows us to have more time and money to enjoy other things in life. We can do our marketing and know exactly what we need for that week and not spend money unnecessarily on food that we didn't plan on, plus we don't have to go to the market everyday wondering up and down the isle trying to make a decision about what to make for dinner. Now is a great time to get organized for the upcoming year by planning your meals.

We enjoyed having our daughter from Oregon visit us last week, it is so nice to have a chance to visit with family and friends that live so far away. We have passed another mile stone here at the cottage, I made my very first blog post 7 years ago on July 18, 2010. On August 18, 2010, just one month later  I posted  Whats For Dinner Next Week , and have published our weekly meal plan every week since. When I first started publishing our family meal plan every week, I included a weekly feature recipe and the one on this post is still one of our favorites. I want to say Thank You To each one of you who have been on this journey with me and helped to make Miz Helen's Country Cottage so special to me. I look forward to interacting with you each week and made so many wonderful blogging friends here through these years. You are very dear to my heart and I treasure you friendships, thanks for being here!

This was a very short week with the 4th falling on Tuesday, gave us a very long holiday weekend. Now here we are getting ready for next week already, I think the summer months always fly by. There is always so many fun things to do and good food to eat. Very excited to be having one of our daughters come home for a visit this week, so we will be making some of her favorites on our meal plan this week, I just love the summertime visits.

I am so glad to see the sun, we have had rain now for the past two weeks and the allergies in our area have been going crazy. I for one will be so happy to see this season of allergies past on by. The fisherman of the family have been busy and I think we have enough fish to have a nice little fish fry this week. You have got to check out the peach pie, it is one of my favorites.

This is really great to be able to kick off 2017 with you today! We are having a great New Years Day with friends and family and have planned a really great meal plan that will allow us to have some left over's next week. After all the holiday cooking I always like to slow it down a little and have some easier days in the kitchen. This is a really great time of the year to get started on Meal Plans for your family. I have some great meal planning ideas for you at the end of todays post. Wishing You and Your Family Abundant Blessings In 2017!

We have had a fabulous Christmas with family and friends. We were so blessed to have some of our family here that had not been home in many years because of Military commitments, no empty plates on our table this year. We are planning a real southern and very traditional New Years meal plan for the beginning of a new year. As we close out 2016 together, I want to thank you for your loyal support through the years and let you know what a pleasure and joy it is for me to be able to share these meal plans with you every week.

We are so excited to have our son and daughter in law here for a visit. They have just retired from 36 years in the military and are moving home to Texas. I am planning some of their favorite foods and some that will allow me to spend more time visiting with them. This is one of the times when meal plans really pay off, I will have all the marketing done and even some of the dishes prepared in advance, saving me time and money. This is a great time of the year to get into meal planning with the holidays coming up.

We are getting some of the best fall vegetables from the garden and some of our neighbors fruit trees. I just love being in the country in the fall with all the little farm stands showing off the wonderful displays of pumpkins and fall fruit. I am excited to have one of my favorites on Sunday and one of my husbands favorite breakfast dishes on the menu this week.  We love soup so I have decided to have Soup Monday on the meal plan for a while, it will be fun!