Meal Planning with Connie

Crescent Sausage Rolls Crescent Sausage Rolls Yummy!! Yummy!! Yummy!! This recipe is adapted from one I found at Amy’s Finer Things . She has some really good step-by-step photos for this recipe. 1 can crescent rolls (I used reduced-fat crescents) 1 box brown-and-serve sausage links (I used turkey) Shredded cheddar cheese 1. Unroll crescents; separate into rectangles. Pinch diagonal seams to seal. 2. Sprinkle each rectangle with cheddar cheese. 3. Slice each rectangle in half. Place a sausage at each end and roll up. 4. Slice each roll into two or three pieces. 5. Bake at 375° for 13-15 minutes.

We had a full, but fun, week-end, with two wedding receptions, a trip to Oxford, a visit from my dad and a late Sunday lunch with Dude and Aunt Jean. All events included some really good eats!! Both wedding receptions were lovely! With the growing trend of destination weddings, these receptions are becoming a regular event in our area and, I assume, across the country. Great food was served at both! Best wishes and many blessings to both of these sweet couples!! Emileigh's Table Our Plate Lunches Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie (We momentarily dug in before remembering to snap a picture!) Saturday, I had an errand I needed to do in Oxford. Larry and I decided to make a little morning trip of it! We drove out to the Plein Air community in Taylor, located about 8 miles outside Oxford, and ate a plate lunch at Emileigh’s Table . Everything was absolutely delicious and came served on their fun, eclectic collection of dinner plates. I had the shrimp and grits, green beans and succotash. Larr...

Tuna Salad on Croissant and Chocolate Eclair Larry took Aunt Jean to Memphis to the doctor today. They brought back a late lunch from La Baguette for all of us. A sweet co-worker of Larry's, Mrs. Elizabeth S., recommended La Baguette to us over 20 years ago, and we continue to eat there to this day. It is a neat little pastry/sandwich shop on Poplar. They have a great assortment of fresh baked breads, muffins, pastries, sandwiches and salads. We all had a croissant sandwich. Aunt Jean and Dude both ate chicken salad. Logan had tuna salad. M.C. had ham and Swiss, and Larry and I had pimento and cheese. Y'all know I'm not gonna pass up some good pimento and cheese!! Dirty's All-Natural Potato Chips They serve Dirty's All-Natural Potato Chips , which are yummy!! Since we ate a late lunch, we all just ate a small bite of leftovers for supper. If you in Memphis and looking for a quite little place for lunch, give La Baguette a try!

"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...

The Veranda - Starkville, MS We had another alteration to our meal plan for the week. M.C. had an appointment in Starkville this morning. Since Larry was off, so we decided to make a family day of the trip. Larry treated us to lunch at The Veranda. They serve a nice, little blue plate lunch for $8.00, which includes a meat and three veggies, drink and taxes! We all had the fried chicken, with a wide variety of sides including: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, fried okra, fried green tomatoes and turnip greens. You also have a choice of biscuits or cornbread. If you are in Starkville at lunch time, consider giving The Veranda a try! They also have a wide menu at night, too. We've eaten supper there a few times over the years and have always been pleased with our food! Here a link to their website, which includes menus for lunch, blue plate special and dinner: http://www.verandastarkville.com/ We did some errands and then stopped by Cold Stone Creamery for a bi...

Long John Silver's Baja Fish Taco Aunt Jean and Logan spent the morning working at the Food Pantry. They said there were a good many families who came by for assistance. If you haven't dontated to your local food pantry lately, please consider doing so. Because we all get so scattered and busy during the summer, many ministries, like food banks, see a decrease in giving during the middle months of the year. After they finished at the Food Pantry, they came by the house and picked up M.C. Aunt Jean took them to our Kentucky Fried Chicken/Long John Silver's and treated them to lunch. They brought me back the free Baja Fish Taco. I really liked it! It's basically a small piece of LJS's battered and fried fish in a tortilla, with lettuce and a spicy sauce. The sauce was a bit spicy for me. In the future, I will order it with tartar sauce instead of the spicy sauce. You might ask for the spicy sauce on the side to see which you prefer! Let me know if you give ...

In America, you can buy bucket-sized cups of coffee in any flavour you like, other than coffee-flavour. ~Author Unknown - but apparently British from the spelling. What do those tea drinkers know about coffee, anyway?! ;) McDonald's Hot Mocha Whipped Cream and Chocolate Syrup oozing from the spout of a McDonald's Hot Mocha It's Mocha Monday at Mickey D's!! I ran to our McDonald's here in Pontotoc this morning and got a Hot Mocha. I am a pretty loyal Starbucks fan and hadn't tried McDonald's gourmet coffees - until today. I have to say it was pretty good! Better, or as good as - Starbucks? Well, I'm mixed! I think I like McDonald's whipped topping and chocolate syrup better than Starbucks!! It was creamy and sweet! Really tasty!! But, I'll have to say that Starbucks still has me on the coffee part! However, Mickey D's wasn't bad at all!! Considering that the closest Starbucks is 20 miles, verses the closest McDonald's being a mile ...

Eat thy bread with joy... Ecclesiastes 9:7 Atlanta Bread's Asiago Cheese Bagel Atlanta Bread's Asiago Cheese Bagel toasted with Bacon Pimento and Cheese and Whipped Cream Cheese Larry and I love bagels! Unfortunately, fresh bagels weren’t available in our immediate area for a long time! As always, even though I'm sure I never had the good sense to ask Him, God provided! When we went to Memphis, we’d go by The Bagel Company on Poplar and load up. Leigh and Brendan often bring us a nice package of these wonderful treats from Beagle Bagel, when they come home. And, Lula, a kind, former co-worker of Larry’s, fellow foodie and terrific cook, would bring us bagels from New York, when she went to visit her family there. Then a few months back, an Atlanta Bread Company opened in Tupelo! Oh, happy day!! Fresh bagels without traveling to extremes, or "mis-putting" our friends and family! It really is the small things in life that often bring us the greatest pleasure! I am...

Shrimp and Grits, Easy Mandarin Orange Salad and Hush Puppies Many thanks again to my friend, Roan, at Joyful Always for this delicious recipe. It’s definitely a keeper! This would make a great “date-night-at-home” meal! We bought some shrimp while we were in Destin and froze them when we got home. I thawed some of these to use for tonight’s supper. They were very tasty! I love Shrimp and Grits! My favorite restaurant version (to date is the one served at Boure in Oxford. Leigh and Brendan were in Destin for a conference a couple of the days we were there. They treated us to supper one night at Graffiti’s , located in the Baytown area. Larry and I both ordered the Shrimp and Grits dish, which was delicious! The restaurant’s artwork was neat, too! The Easy Mandarin Orange Salad was inspired by a salad I ate at Harbor Docks , while we were on vacation. The crisp lettuce, crunchy almonds, sweet oranges and tangy Italian salad dressing all contrast each other nicely...

Sign at the Original Dewey Destin's When we were on vacation a couple of weeks ago, we asked a few Destin locals where we should go to get some good fried shrimp. They all assured us that Dewey Destin's was the place to go. They didn't steer us wrong! Most of the time asking a local is the best way to find the really good places to eat. It won't take you long to know if you're talking to a real foodie. If you ask a resident for a restaurant recommendation, and they start to rattle off the name of all the chain eateries in town, politely thank them, and move on. However, if you ask a local, and the first sentence is something like this - "Well, it doesn't look like much, but the best food in town is at this little place where we all like to go" - then listen up! You've probably found what you're looking for!! There are two Dewey Destin's locations. The older location is literally "a hole in the wall"on the bay, as we were ...

While traveling home from the beach through Alabama, we stumbled upon a real gem for junk food connoisseurs, like ourselves! We were trucking along, minding our own business and making pretty good time. Then, we began to see.....the billboards. Really, they had us from the very first sign! By the time we reached Fort Deposit, we were ready for some of the advertised confections we’d been reading about for the past 30 miles. At the same time, we were afraid of getting our hopes up too much. Not everything is always what it’s built up to be, you know! Could this place really deliver all their ads promised? As we approached the car-filled parking lot, we saw that this place was basically a confection-lovers compound. All our concerns quickly dissipated, when we opened the door and entered Priester’s Pecans. I am sure our eyes looked as though they were about to pop out of our heads! For starters, this place is jammed full of candies, nuts, ice cream, sodas, etc.! It is basicall...

TripAdvisors’ number one Destin restaurant pick is McGuire’s. When we asked a couple of Destin locals for restaurant recommendations, they also highly recommended McGuire’s - especially their burgers! The steak house restaurant and gift shop has been featured on the Today Show, and also has a Pensacola location. The atmosphere is similar to our local Harvey's, or any of the chain restaurants with a bar area, just with a strong Irish theme. We went for an early lunch. It was quiet, and we had no wait. A novelty, at least to us, was the thousands of patron-autographed one dollar bills that hung from the ceiling and were taped to every imaginable surface in the restaurant. McGuire’s offers a wide variety of burger choices. Larry and I both ate the Bacon Cheese burger. M.C. ate the Blue Cheese Burger, and Logan got the Swiss burger. All were very good, but the favorite thing on my plate was the homemade potato wedges. They were sooo good! I left half my burger, just so I ...

On our way down to Destin, we decided to take a detour through Foley, AL and eat at Lambert's for old time's sake. When the kids were small, they loved going there and catching the rolls the waiters lop through the air from across the restaurant. We always came away stuffed on good Southern fare. On the way out, there was always a game of sidewalk checkers, and Dad had to take a photo or two (or three, or...) with all the different memorabilia that is in abundance both inside and outside this eating establishment. It had been years since we’d eaten at Lambert's, and fortunately, we found nothing had changed! We ate our fill of meat loaf, fried chicken, ham and beans, and a wide variety of sides, including mash potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, turnip greens, slaw, black-eyed peas, fried okra, country fried potatoes, etc.!! The Lambert's waiters go from table to table with metal mixing bowls filled with side dishes they have dubbed “Pass Arounds”. One can literally ea...

I have had a nice vacation from cooking for the past few days! As much as I enjoy cooking, it’s nice to have a break once in a while. Judy and I had a great time eating at Shogun! We ordered some sushi rolls that we hadn’t tried before. We got an avocado and cucumber, a carrot stick, and a salmon. They were all very good. We also ordered our all-time favorite - crawfish roll! Good food with a great friend! What a treat! Big Bad Breakfast was delicious! If you’re in Oxford and looking for a good breakfast or brunch, give it a try. For you Southern literature fans, the restaurant gets its name from the late Oxford author Larry Brown's book, Big Bad Love . The restaurant uses mostly organic, locally grown produce and dairy products. One concession is the use of MSU cheese. According to restaurant owner, John Currence: "We use Mississippi State cheese wherever we can… only because there is no Rebel Cheese, which would surely be more tasteful and refined..." All k...