Pumpkin Bread Anyone

Happy Monday Everyone!  Did you all have a fabulous weekend?  Did you do anything fun?

I have a wonderful recipe to share with you today.  On Saturday I finally decided enough was enough, I had to make pumpkin bread (I had only been craving it for the past week), and boy am I glad I made it.  I was extremely happy with how the bread turned out, moist, a little sweet, melty chocolate and PUMPKIN!

Read on to get this wonderful recipe!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes

I know today I was supposed to share the wonderful salad I made a few days ago but I think my breakfast deserves the spotlight.  Especially since everyone seems to be all about these right now!

Fall is finally here!

And I have a small confession to make something I would have never thought possible!  I am getting a bit sick of my daily bowl of oatmeal, I know this is shocking!  But as I was flipping through recipes last night Pumpkin Pancakes caught my eye!  The only problem was that I was not finding a recipe that I absolutely fell in love with.  The recipes either had way way to many ingredients or had things I didn't have (like bisquick).  So I developed a plan or I guess an idea and prayed that today when I set out to make these pumpkin pancakes that my idea would work!

The end result?  FABULOUS!

Not only did I want pumpkin pancakes today, but I wanted those pumpkin pancakes to be oatmeal pancakes.  I know I know just a few small demands.  Well remember those Applesauce Oatmeal Pancakes I feel in love with?  The ones from this post?  Well my thought was why couldn't I sub in pumpkin puree for the applesauce?  They both have the same consistency, and would not change the nutritional stats of the pancakes at all!  And you know what that crazy idea worked!  This morning I was happily munching on delicious pumpkin pancakes with a pumpkin yogurt topping!

Here is the fabulous recipe, which was adapted from this Taste of Homes Recipe

Pumpkin Pancakes

Serves 5 - 2 Pancakes Each

Dry Ingredients 

1-Cup Quick Cooking Oats

1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour

1/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour 

1 Tablespoon Baking Powder

Cinnamon, Nutmeg and a bit of sweetener-All as much as you want (not in original recipe)

Wet Ingredients 

1 Cup Milk (Calls for Skim I used Unsweetened Almond Milk)

2 Tablespoons Pumpkin Puree (Not Pumpkin Pie Filling)

4 Egg Whites 

A Splash of Vanilla

What you do:

Combine all Dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Then combine all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. 

Add your wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and start flipping pancakes!

Cook the pancakes as you would a normal buttermilk pancake, about 3-4 min per side.  Wait till you see tiny bubbles form and pop to flip your pancakes!

For the Pumpkin Yogurt Sauce!

1 Container Dannon Vanilla Greek Yogurt

1 Tablespoon Pumpkin Puree

Cinnamon, and Nutmeg

Combine all the ingredients together stir and enjoy!

I ate all the yogurt atop my pancakes with a bit of peanut butter!  I have to say there was jut the faintest hint of pumpkin to these pancakes, that is why I added a pumpkin dipping sauce! But still they were YUM!

I will leave you with this, enjoy your Thursday and remember to live Happily Ever Healthy!

This quote was emailed to me today and I laughed a bit to myself when I read it!

"Always behave like a duck-keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath"

-Jacob Braude

How To Stay Warm in Minnesota... Eat Soup!

Minnesota is having the perfect weather right now.  The mornings are a bit chilly, the afternoons warm up nicely to a sunny70 degrees (no humidity) and the evenings cool off, which to me is the perfect soup eating weather!

 Well, when my mom and I began tossing dinner ideas around, there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted soup.

Now for me, the hard part is always figuring out which kind of soup I am actually hungry for.  The fact that I landed on wanting soup for dinner was a bit scary, usually I take forever to decide on dinner!  I am the type of person that will crave something one minute and the next minute I have changed my mind to something completely opposite!  Sometimes there is no pleasing me.  When there is this type of decision that needs to be made, I am the type of person that likes to turn to a good old cookbook.  And my mom has about a million cookbooks, and in no time I had a spread of her coobooks out, covering the kitchen island.  I mean we had Taste of Home

The Mayo Clinic and William Sonoma Cook Book 

and a trillion other William Sonoma ones.  

To be honest I have the hardest time looking through cookbooks, because of all the wonderful pictures.  I mean you can get hungry just flipping through a cookbook.  If only I could make my pictures look like a cook book!

Keep reading to find out what delicious soup I ended up preparing!

Just Like Old Times

Let me start by apologizing for the fact that I have been MIA in the blog world.  But I think a best friends wedding is a pretty good excuse for the blog to take the back burner for a few days.  I am sad that this weekend has come to an end.  Kady left yesterday ( I was sad to see her go) and Mark left early today.  However I cannot think of a better way to spend a long labor day weekend then with people you love, and celebrating the wedding of one of your best friends.  My whole weekend was centered around wonderful friends/family, and making memories!  We have countless pictures of the "high school bunch" from this weekend.  I felt like I was  back in high school (not that I am complaining), especially when my parents made brunch for all of us Sunday morning after the wedding.  Everyone gathered in my parents kitchen taking and laughing just felt like the good old days.  This post is going to be very picture heavy!  But there are so many wonderful pictures I want to share with you from the wedding!  I cried and laughed on Saturday.  Katie made the most beautiful Bride, and you could honestly tell how happy and in love Katie and Richard are.  The ceremony focused on how they had known each other for a life time, and talked of there love for one another, you could just see how excited the two of them were to start their lives together.   I am so glad I got to be apart of their wonderful day, and with that being said here are some fabulous pictures!

Beautiful!

The Flowers were gorgeous!

What I Am Loving Wednesday Vol 4.

It is Wednesday Already?  Wow this week is flying by!  Katie gets married in 3 days, I pick up Kady one of my oldest and dearest friends tomorrow from the airport (it feels like ages since I have seen her), and there is a three day weekend coming up!   What is not to love?  This weekend is going to be packed with exciting memories, I cannot wait to share it all with you guys!  But here is a list of what I am loving now!

First I am obviously loving that I get to spend this long weekend celebrating the wedding of my best friend, and on top of that I get to be with some very special people!

I am loving that the weather is starting to get cooler, and that fall is right around the corner!  Fall is my very favorite season!  Not only is my birthday in the fall, but fall is full of fabulous colors and smells!  I love watching the leaves change from green to the vibrant oranges and reds.  

I was so excited to see Pumpkin Spice Lattes on the Starbucks menu the other day!

Guess this means its time for more Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal!

I am loving the new fall candle scents at Bath and Body Works!  

They all smell amazing, and yes I went around and smelled ALL of them!

To be completely honest I am loving a lot of things right now, today has just been one of those days where I am full of energy and just excited about everything! 

I hope you all have a fantastic Wednesday, and remember to live Happily Ever Healthy!

A Rainy Day Calls for Soup

Today was a rainy and gloomy day here in Minnesota, and on those types of days the only thing I really want to do is curl up in a blanket and be lazy.  And you know what that is exactly what Mark and I did.  Minus running to the gym, and to have my bridesmaids dress fixed I spent all day in the house!  It was glorious!  Mark rented a few movies for us and we curled up on the couch with bowls of mac and cheese.  Yes I said Mac and Cheese, I decided I wanted to try the Annie's Organic Version of  Shells and Cheese.

I have to say I was not that impressed, it was a little bland!  However I enjoyed it old like I did when I was little with peas, carrots and well I had to add some garlic to liven it up! Not sure if I will buy it again!

Have any of you ever seen the movie Limitless?  With Bradley Cooper?  Thats what Mark and I watched today it was a bit odd!  Non the less it killed some time!  Along with searching for the perfect rainy day soup to make!  Tortilla Soup seemed to be the soup of the day in the blog world, and as soon as I saw all the wonderful recipes my mouth started watering.  I knew tortilla soup was what I wanted for dinner, and it wasn't hard to convince Mark or my mom into the soup for dinner either!  However on looking in the pantry I saw the house lacked a few key ingredients... let the recipe search begin!  I found this recipe for Salsa Chicken Soup on Taste of Homes website, added bonus we had all the ingredients!  Another added bonus the soup is a one pot dinner, and super easy to make.  I added some extra veggies for bulk and some beans because to me a tortilla salsa soup needs beans!!

Here is what you need:

Adapted from this Taste Of Home Recipe

1 Can Low Sodium Chicken Broth 

1-3/4 Cup Water

1 Cup Salsa of your choice 

1/2 Pound Chicken Cubed

1 Cup Corn 

Chili Powder, Garlic and Cilantro 

1 Can Black Beans 

Cheese and Limes for Garnish 

1 Medium Red Pepper

1/2 Medium Onion 

For Crispy Tortilla Strips 

5-6 Tortillas

Olive Oil Cooking Spray 

Salt, Pepper and Garlic

What you do:

In a soup pot combine Water, Chicken Broth spices and Chicken.  I also added my Onions and Peppers in this step (they were not originally in the recipe).  Bring to a boil and cover for 5 minutes.

Next add your Corn

and your Salsa.

Return the lid to the pot and simmer until chicken is cooked through!

While I was waiting for the chicken to cook Mark and I focused on the Tortilla Strips.  He cut the tortillas into thin strips, sprayed them with cooking spray and seasoned them. Place them in a 300 degree oven and broil them until crispy!  I don't have an exact time I simply just watched them till the reached the crispness I wanted!

Time to serve!

The perfect dinner for a rainy day!  Tonights soup was a bit on the hot side, I used hot salsa.  Milk was definitely the perfect compliment to a spicy  dinner!

I am off or a friendly game of Sorry!  

Enjoy and remember to live Happily Ever Healthy!

Plummer House and Festivities Recap

Yesterday before going out to celebrate my parents 31st wedding anniversary Mark and I did a little tour of Rochester.  Rochester has three huge mansions, two were home of the Mayo Brothers (I talked about Will Mayo's house in this post) and one was Dr. Plummer's.  The Plummer house is one of my favorite houses. Not only is the house beautiful, but the gardens are sprawling and studded with beautiful flowers and fountains! I held my Graduation (from high school) open house there and even took some of my senior pictures there.  Dr Plummer was not only a wonderful doctor but helped the clinic in many ways, he came up with a correspondence system that was used throughout the Clinic, and was the first doctor to understand and operate the X-Ray machine.  Here are a few pictures from our adventure!

 The tower in the side garden

 Front door to the house!

 I love these fountains!

 King of the Rock!

We spent the rest of our day relaxing and gearing up for the celebration!  Lets transition into talking about the fabulous dinner we had last night!