Meal Planning – Page 41 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Best Pork Loin

Published on December 15, 2023December 12, 2023 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

I needed a quick recipe to throw together the other day and I happened upon this recipe HERE. I was totally exhausted after working so long in the new pantry and I really didn’t want to fuss with a lot of ingredients so this was perfect! I did make a couple of changes to keep this more keto-friendly and it was delicious!

We served this with some mashed turnips, steamed broccoli, and some black-eyed peas that had been cooking on the stove. The girls made some cornbread muffins and I made some keto cornbread to go with it.

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Special Holiday Meals: What’s for Christmas Dinner? (2023)

Published on December 14, 2023September 23, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

This has been the topic of discussion for a couple of weeks here now but I really don’t have a definite answer yet. We know that we don’t want to do a ‘traditional’ meal so no ham or turkey this year. We may use the smoker to do some meat and maybe have some pulled pork in the crockpot.

I’m hoping to try to make some Christmas Tree Bread or a Christmas Star with our sourdough but I’m not sure if either of those will happen but they are on my wish list of things to do. I would love to do a traditional Christmas dinner like the one listed in the vintage dinner menu I mentioned HERE but I know that I definitely don’t have the time or patience for that right now.

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Amish Friendship Bread – A gift that keeps on giving!

Published on December 12, 2023December 12, 2023 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

Are you still trying to come up with a gift idea for someone? This is a great gift to give… either finish the starter out to bake the bread or gift some starter and a copy of the directions to your friends so they can bake their own bread.

I was recently gifted several starters so I had to dig through my old binders to find my old recipes for this gift. It’s been over 10 years since I’ve made any of these recipes. I ended up making 2 loaves of the Basic Recipe, 2 loaves of Banana Bread, 2 loaves of Chocolate Bread, and a double-batch of pancakes, and I still have 2 cups of starter left over to start another batch.

I have included the basic bread instructions in this post and I will also try to include a pretty printable for gifting. This would be so cute to give a small loaf of bread with a small jar of starter and the instructions.

There are many other variations available and you can easily search for more flavor variations online. I will try to update the blog with some of the other recipe variations that I have in my binder.

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Update with more pictures! Preparing for Christmas… St. Nicholas, Gifts in a Jar, and so much more!

Published on December 5, 2023February 22, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

We’ve had a busy weekend… well, I have. I’ve been working on my pantry makeover and I’ve completely moved things around 3 times already! I will post pictures as soon as I have it the way I like it but it is an improvement already and I think it makes better use of the breakfast nook space that just didn’t work for us.

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Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 7 (The Week After Thanksgiving)

Published on November 27, 2023November 30, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

Thanksgiving is over but there’s no time to rest yet as the real preparations are beginning for the holidays! One of the biggest things we need to do is to take time to sit down and evaluate how our Thanksgiving was. What was everyone’s favorite part? Was there anything that didn’t work well? Do you need to set up a rotating schedule to have dinner at other family member’s homes? (Odd year here, Even year there, or every 3rd, 4th, year?) Would it be better to have a potluck-style meal where everyone brings something? Was there anything you would like to do differently? Start now for your planning for next year so you don’t forget these ‘little things’! We will also be getting all of our Fall decor ready to be put away next week so we can start pulling out the Christmas decor.