We have had a great harvest in our garden this season and we are busy canning and preserving the wonderful vegetables. I always say the best part of the canning and preserving process is opening that delicious jar of vegetables when the snow is on the ground. Making a meal plan will help me save time when my kitchen is so busy and saves time at the market knowing just exactly what I need to complete my meals for the week.  I encourage you to make a meal plan, to save you time and your family money.

I am so excited that June is here and we can enjoy some awesome summer dishes on our tables. Our garden is going really well right now and we are able to harvest more and more each week. I am also glad that we can be planning more outdoor grilling and the use of our outdoor kitchen. Sometimes I will have my slow cooker in the outdoor kitchen, it is a lot of fun to cook there. What outdoor meal plans do you and your family have in the summer months?

Since the weekend we have been very busy here at the cottage, helping our neighbors about 5 miles down the road from us. I have been involved with a group of very caring people in cooking a lot of food for folks who lost their home in the horrible storms. Last Saturday we had 5 tornadoes roar through our area. One of them was a F4 and it started about 5 miles from here. The tornadoes were on the ground for about 50 miles and lasted a little over 2 hours. There is complete devastation for miles and miles around us. We are so grateful that our cottage was spared and we have no damage. I am very grateful be to making my meal plan for the next week and that we have a home to enjoy it in. Please join me in prayer for all the folks who will be rebuilding their homes and lives.

The weather will be awesome this weekend so we are going to be grilling out, and that will sure be a part of the meal plan this week. This time of the year I always look at the extended weather to make my meal plan, so we can cook outdoors whenever the weather is good. I am going to be using some of my frozen fruit from last year to make room for the new fruit that will be coming on soon. Meal Planning helps me keep my food products current and that means less waste because of expired products. Lets head to the kitchen and get the plan started!

Spring is here and I am so excited! Our meal plans will start to center more around our spring foods that are available in the markets and in our garden. We have some beautiful Swiss Chard that is ready in the garden, I am using some of it in one of the recipes this week. We have already been having some awesome fresh salads from our Lettuce Tub that sits outside our kitchen door. Lets get this plan made so we can enjoy this awesome spring day!

I love the special time of Valentine's and Sweethearts, I am such a romantic. I am planning a very special dinner for my sweetheart this valentine day. I also have some busy days coming up so I will sure take all that into consideration when making my meal plan for the week.Are you planning a special dinner for your sweetheart this week? Let me know what your plans are, it is always fun to see what others are planning.

Welcome to the cottage and our first meal plan of 2017. Cold weather has arrived here at the cottage, we have not had a snowfall yet but it will come anyday. When it gets this cold I think of comfort meals and baking in the oven that keeps the kitchen cozy. I love to use the root vegetables from our garden that we have stored in our cold bins. We also use our canned vegetables that we worked hard to can last summer, it is always good when the snow is on the ground. Come on in and have a cup of hot cocoa with me while we plan this meal plan.

Our cottage is all a buzz with activity this week. We have family that is here for the holidays and our Granddaughter and Great Granddaughter have just arrived, we are so excited. Meal planning is a must when the family gathers for special celebrations. We will be planning recipes this week that will be some of their favorites and some new recipes that I can't wait for them to sample. Hope you are taking the time to make meal plans through the holidays, it will sure save you time and money!

Here we are at Thanksgiving Week, what a wonderful time to stop and be thankful for all the bounty that we have been given. We like many of you will be sitting down for our Traditional Turkey Dinner on Thanksgiving Day. I count all of you among my many blessings  I am grateful for each of you and thank you for  being a part of our world here at  Miz Helen's Country Cottage!

This week will be filled with excitement for some and disappointment for others, our general election for the USA is on Tuesday of this week. We always have a little election gathering of a few friends but we keep it simple. It is a little rainy here with fall really beginning to come to our area, at last! When the weather gets rainy I always look for wonderful soups and cozy food for our meal plan.

We are in the last full week of October and this month has flown by. I am so excited to go to an annual fall gathering this coming week, we will be seeing old friends and having one of those fabulous Pot Luck Suppers with yummy food. We have really been enjoying the beautiful butterflies in our yard, they are all over our Zinea's as they are on miagration right now and I sure am glad that we are a stop on their journey. Since I have a meal plan every week, it gives me more time to enjoy other things.

For my meal plan this week, I just took a freezer inventory and I have several packages of poultry and beef that I need to use before I restock the freezer for winter.I keep a running inventory of the freezer foods and it really helps to keep the products fresh. There is nothing worse than pulling a freezer bag out of the freezer and it has freezer burn all over it because it was forgotten, a running inventory prevents that freezer burner moment. I hope that is a tip that will help you in your meal planning.

Fall has arrived, the leaves are starting to turn and the evening's are cooler.  Our meal plans will turn to the warm and cozy foods of fall.  I have been busy going through some of my favorite fall recipes and there are so many of them I can't wait to make again.  I have a great One Pot Meal on the Sunday menu this week, our family just loves this recipe.  Lets get busy and finish this meal plan.

August along with its temperatures have arrived and the weather man says that we are looking at over 100 degrees for all of next week. When I hear that I want my meal plan to be simple and cool. We are in the process of using up most of our garden vegetables before the heat takes them. What are some of your favorite dishes to prepare in the hot weather of August?

Before I sit down to start my meal plan each week, I like to check my garden in the summer to see what fresh vegetables we will be able to use in our meal plans. I spend some time in the garden very early this morning checking to see what we can harvest in the next week to be used in our meal plans, now I am ready to take a break sit here on the porch and write this meal plan. I still hear the sound of my kids when they would come home from their school day and say Whats For Dinner, and I would always say it's on The Menu Board!

We have had a very exciting week here at the cottage, our Granddaughter her husband and Great Granddaughter have been here for a summer visit and will be here next week, I am one excited Nana!  Meal plans are so important when we are having house guest it sure gives me more time to spend with them. I always include some of my guest favorites and sometimes they will go to the blog and make their selections.  We will be making several of their favorite recipes this week.

I am a native Texan and have lived here most of my life and have never seen so much rain as we have had this year. We have had over 12 inches here over the past few days and the water has nowhere else to go. The lakes and the rivers are full and running over. We are so grateful that although we have had a lot of rain, we are not flooded here. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those folks who have lost their home and everything in these floods. We are supposed to have a break in the weather on Sunday so we are headed outside to the outdoor kitchen to do some grilling, can't wait to get outside. I have made our pantry inventory, and have all of our recipes together so lets get this meal plan done then we will have more time to visit!

We are having a busy week here at the cottage, and I am so glad that I have meals planned ahead. We are in the process of putting the kitchen cabinets back in order after a little paint and spring spruce up, I will be so happy to get back to our regular kitchen routine. My neighbor brought me some fresh chickens, so we will be having some chicken on the menu this week and I am glad you are here to share the meal plan  process with me.

Hope you'al had a great St. Patrick's Day Celebration and now we can look forward to Good Friday and Easter. Planning meals sure make the holidays run smoother, especially if you are expecting house guest like we are. I will be checking the freezer and making a trip to the garden to check out what we have on hand before I begin to make the plan. We want to take a moment today and send our thoughts and prayers to all the folks in the flooded area's of the south.  Our heart really goes out to all of you!

It is the week of the Irish here at the cottage and we will be celebrating St. Patrick's Day. It is a time for us to remember our Irish Heritage and reflect on lots of wonderful memories of times spent with our Irish family, and of course food is a big part of that.  We will be planning our meal plan around some of those old family favorites this week, I am so glad you will be coming along to enjoy this week with us!