Meal Planning with Connie

It's Meal Planning Day!! New cooking quotes and tips for the kitchen, baking and recycling have been added in the left sidebar!! Don't forget to tidy your fridge and sort your coupons before beginning your meal planning this week!! Just want to say a quick thanks to everyone for reading! We just completed our first three months of blogging. I understand this is a bit of a milestone in the blogging world. It has really been fun! It started out as a little project for Logan and me to work on together. Before long, Larry and M.C. were involved, as well. Larry has enjoyed taking the photos when he can. (The good photos are his. The not-so-good ones are mine!) M.C. has also taken a few of our photos, and she is the best little sous chef any mom could ever hope for! It's become a fun family hobby! Thank you so much for all your sweet comments! We appreciate your encouragement and love hearing that you've tried a recipe or two!! The Lord's richest blessings t...

We had a Leftovers Buffet tonight. I usually do these on Thursday nights, if we have enough leftovers to make a meal. We just take everything out of the fridge that needs eating, heat it and serve it up buffet-style. This is always fun to me. It's kind of nice to be reminded of the meals I've managed to put together for my family. Plus, there's usually a few - "Oh, yeah! There's some of that left?!" Of course the elation I feel from that compliment is usually quickly tempered by someone else making a comment something like this - "Oh, no, I thought we'd finally gotten rid of all that!" Oh, the joys and pains of being a mom and head cook!! When I looked things over today, I realized there were a couple of things in the fridge that really had to be eaten tonight - or discarded. We truly had a dab-of-this-and-a-dab-of-that. It was a great way to clean out the fridge and not let these bits of food go to waste! Plus we were all full when we...

Our ice cream freezer died! We had hoped to replace it this week, but we didn't have any luck! I hate we didn't get to make this ice cream recipe that Holly F. shared with us! I know it is delicious!! Thank you, Holly, for sharing all these wonderful homemade ice cream recipes! They've made great Desserts of the Week for July!! I had bought my Butterfingers in anticipation of making the ice cream. So, I decided to use them for Butterfinger Blondies instead! We really like these!! Here are the recipes for the ice cream and the cookie bars: Homemade Butterfinger Ice Cream 2 1/2 cups sugar 6 eggs 1 can Eagle Brand Milk 1 can pet milk 3 T. vanilla 4 butterfingers crushed Whole Milk to fill freezer Cook first 5 ingredients. Add butterfingers. Pour mixture into ice cream freezer and add whole milk to fill line. Freeze according to freezer directions. Butterfinger Blondies Note: Be sure to check for the best price on the Butterfingers. Those ba...

"It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him." ~ Miguel de Cervantes , Don Quixote I don't know how close we're getting to having eaten our peck of salt together, but after more than twenty years of friendship and many dining experiences, Judy and I are surely getting close! We had our end-of-the-summer lunch last week. It was a bitter-sweet time of fellowship. We'd both been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks! Unfortunately, we know that once school starts back, we'll both be so busy, it will be months before we have the pleasure of another leisurely lunch together. We ate at Café 212 in Tupelo, per George’s recommendation! Thank you, George!! We both loved it!! I had a White Cheddar Pimento Cheese Grill and Judy had one of their Chicken Salad choices. I believe they have two varieties of chicken salad. We will definitely go back to Café 212!! Check it out for yourself: http://www.cafe212tupel...

"Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed." Genesis 2:8 I am afraid the results of our last poll, which asked the question: “Do you have a garden?” shows the evidence of a quickly changing way of life in The South. The results were: “Yes” - 35% “No” - 42% “I have a few plants, but not at true garden” - 21% When I was growing up, everyone had a garden. Those who lived in town either designated a portion of their backyards to vegetable gardening, or they had a garden spot at the home of one of their country-living relatives. For those of us who grew up in the country, there were usually multiple planting areas. There was the vegetable garden, which we ate from through-out the summer and was usually located fairly close to the house. Here we planted things like potatoes, green onions, lettuce, cabbage, English peas, tomatoes, squash, and okra. Then, there was the “truck patch!” Oh, how I hated the truck patch! Over ...