Good morning everyone – happy Monday to you!

I had a serious case of the snuggles today. It was so cold outside the covers and I did not want to get out of bed for my morning Mom walk! Knowing full well that I couldn’t leave the poor woman hanging, I got out of bed, bundled up and headed out the door. It actually wasn’t too bad out – 45 degrees to be exact! Ay yi yi, you know you’re from the Midwest when 45 degrees is considered “not bad” What can I say, they breed us tough here in Iowa!

So yesterday was a scary day…I polished off the last of my pumpkin ice cream, which left me wondering when and where I would get my next pumpkin fix from! Problem solved: I made Baked Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal for breakfast!

I’m loving baked oatmeal more and more these days. It’s so simple, has a great fluffy, yet chewy, texture and can be made ahead of time. I made this yesterday, then microwaved for 1.5 minutes this morning for an easy, almost instant, breakfast.

In today’s Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal mix:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• splash of vanilla extract
• dashes of pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg & cinnamon

Topping mix:

• ~2 Tablespoons sliced almonds
• ~1 teaspoon brown sugar
• ~1/2 teaspoon butter

Bake for 10 minutes at 375, remove from oven and top with almond mixture. Bake for 10 more minutes and it’s all ready to go. Yummy! I could seriously eat this every single morning. I need to experiment with some different combos!

Unfortunately, there was a lack of veggies in my diet yesterday, so I’m bringing them out in full force today. I packed a monster-sized salad for lunch.

In the mix:

• Romaine lettuce
• Carrots
• Celery
• Feta Cheese
• Capers

I just love feta and capers – so salty and perfect to add zing to any salad. I also packed some Italian dressing with a splash of balsamic vinegar to jazz it up even more.

A Honeycrisp apple is destined to be my afternoon snack. 2:00 “snack time” is something that I look forward to everyday and honestly makes the afternoons go by faster. Hey, whatever works, right?

So with Halloween coming up this weekend and trick-or-treaters hopping around this Friday evening, I thought I’d share this quiz about partially hydrogenated oils found in your favorite Halloween candies – yikes!

Partially hydrogenated oil is another word for trans fat, which raise your “bad” cholesterol levels (LDL) and lower your “good” cholesterol levels (HDL). Basically it’s really nasty stuff, mostly man-made and linked with heaps of health problems. I was so bummed when I recently found out that my favorite Jiffy corn bread mix has partially hydrogenated lard in it! :O

Do yourself, and those little trick-or-treaters, a favor - take this quiz and find out what those popular Halloween candies are hiding! Do any of the answers surprise you?

Have a super day back everyone!

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Speaking of Halloween and scary things…

Do you like scary movies?

I used to live for scary movies – the scarier, the better! Now I find that every year I get older, I get that much wimpier! I can’t even watch scary movie trailers on tv anymore!