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.

Our cottage is all a buzz this week as we prepare for the Easter Weekend. I am so excited that you could take out time from your busy schedule to stop by the party today. This is our week for the Top Ten Views From Last Week, try to stop by and say hello to these awesome bloggers! I can't wait to see what you are sharing with us, so lets get our party started.

When I was a young girl in high school our kitchen step stool sat right under the telephone that hung on the wall. Like many other teens in that time I would sit for long periods of time on the kitchen step stool while talking on the phone. Many long years later, we had to relocate my Mother to a senior community and we put all of the household goods in storage. When Mother passed away and we began to go through the household goods. The kitchen step stool was one of the items that I would not part with. It was beat up and battered, but held so many memories for me.

When the weather permits we head for the grill, but there are times when those best laid plans get rained out, then we head for the oven with our dish. Today I am heading to the oven with my Bar B Que Brats & Beans which has been developed as a result of the rain which we really need. This recipe turned out so delicious that we will be making it over and over rain or shine. It is so easy to put together, full of great flavor and a big hit with friends and family.

The first week of spring has been great and now we are well underway. We will be planning some great meals to fit in with our busy week coming up. This is one of the ways that meal planning really pays off with giving me more time to spend on my other projects. I will be looking to the slow cooker this week to help me in and out of the kitchen a little faster. I love spending time in the garden this time of the year so I can put something in the slow cooker and off to the garden I go.

Welcome Spring! Spring is here, our wild flowers are starting to bloom, the pear trees are in full bloom and just beautiful. Come on out on the screen porch we are having our party out on the porch today, and I am so excited to see what wonderful spring dishes you are bringing to share with us today. We have some very special features from last week that you will want to check out,  stop by these awesome blogs and say hello!

Spring is here and I am so excited, some of my favorite are spring vegetables straight from the garden. We love vegetables and salads and rarely have a meal here at the cottage without vegetables and or salads. These are some of our favorite Salads and Sides and you will find these recipes on many of our spring menu's. I hope you can find some wonderful vegetables at your local farmers market or in your own garden.

We love ham here at the cottage, however we don't always have enough folks coming for the meal to cook a big ham. When we are expecting more than four at a meal, then I will bake our favorite  Baked Country Ham , but for a smaller group I love to bake this delicious Ham Steak. This is a great recipe that is easy, and on the table in no time, plus it's full of flavor.

Spring officially arrives this week and our meal plan will sure reflect that we have turned the page from winter to spring. This has been a long rough winter for lots of folks. We really make good use of the cabbage this time of the year and will be having it in various recipes this week. We will be ending the week with some great Basketball and our special Beirocks a tradition for our Big Game Parties.

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday and the week of the Irish! We are celebrating our Irish here at the cottage with lots of wonderful family favorites. The Basketball March Madness is going strong and our family traditionally make Beirocks  ( German Stuffed Bun), these are very special little buns. I know that all of you have some special dishes that you will be sharing this week and we can't wait to see what you will be sharing. Lets get the party started!

I made these muffins the other day for my husband so we could have some nice warm muffins with our morning coffee. This muffin recipe is made very similar to my  Irish Soda Bread recipe and I could just imagine my Irish Grandmother taking these muffins out of her wood burning oven and sitting down to have coffee with my Grandpa. I love how food brings back so many wonderful memories for us and how we can keep passing our good memories along to our family and friends.

Every year around March Madness Time our family and friends like to get together and make Beirocks. They are a great little bun that is filled with meat, vegetables and great flavor, perfect for a nice round of Basketball or just a great visit with family and friends. Beirocks originated in Russia known at that time as Pirogi, it made its way to Eastern Europe and the German's renamed the little bun a Beirocks. They eventually migrated to the mid western United States and became very popular in Kansas and Nebraska.   We lived for a time in Kansas and our youngest son and his family still live there. I was hooked on Beirocks the first time I ever had one and have made many recipes through the years, but this by far is the best.

The week of the Irish has arrived and it is so much fun to write the meal plan for this week. I love going back through our families Irish recipes and remembering so many wonderful meals with my Grandparents and other family, I can hear my Grandpa playing Irish tunes on the fiddle and the family laughter. The food was always simple but amazing and this is the week that we get to reflect back on that heritage and enjoy this time with our family and friends.

March is here and we are actually having some very welcome Spring weather! Hope you will come in and find your place at the table, I can't wait to see what all of you will be sharing today! We have some really great features from last week and I hope you will stop by these awesome bloggers to check out their post and say hello while you are there.