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 .

Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 687 and our Top Ten Features. On the last post of the month we always allow our readers to chose the features by the most views from last weeks party. Our readers have very good taste, they picked some great features for the party this week! 

We grow and can our own dill pickles every year, and we love adding our pickles to this delicious appetizer. It has very few ingredients and takes very little time to make. We have even made it with sour pickles and it is just as good.  It is a great dip to serve for any game day, a party, or just a movie night. I have used it as a sandwich spread and it is fantastic! A garden to table recipe.

  We enjoy a great snack on occasion. These crackers are one of our favorite snack crackers. If I have a few of these delicious crackers I want the whole bowl. The recipe for the crackers is very simple with a few ingredients. They are great to serve for big game days, holidays, movie nights or a bowl just for yourself.

I am looking forward to Easter week and a celebration of our faith and hope in a new life. We are planning on having family here for some of the festivities which I am sure will include some amazing meal plans. We have been having some really cold weather for this time of the year, so certainly we won't be planning any outdoor activities. We will hope to  be planting some vegetables in the garden next week on the sunny days. I think that we  will also be hiding some Easter Eggs for the little ones in the grass along the way. I am excited to make the meal plans and share them with you.

  Welcome to Full Plate Thursday, 686 and and an official Welcome To Spring 2024!! I sure hope that you had a great St. Patrick's Day celebration. We had some great features from our celebration here at the party last week. This month is moving so fast with Good Friday and Easter just around the corner. I am already getting ready for Easter and will be hosting our study group here at the cottage this week. It seems that we are traveling at light speed sometimes. I know one thing for sure, we have some amazing cooks and creative folks that come to this party every week and I can't wait to see what you will be sharing with us this week. Thanks so much for coming to the party and being a part of this great blogging community!

This is a Broccoli salad that checks all the boxes. It is a great year round salad that can be served for a special holiday dinner, a summer picnic or a simple family dinner. I have brought this salad to ladies luncheons and it is always a winner. This salad is packed with apples, red onion, raisins, toasted pecans, broccoli florets, and topped with crisp crumbled bacon. The salad can be served with or without the delicious dressing.