Realllllly tried...

Sooooo....despite my efforts to wear brightly colored/October appropriate neck ware....

...which Penny really approved of, apparently....;)

You just could NOT get around the fact that yesterday was a GRADE A: GLOOM DAY!!!

Even a pumpkin coffee & an afternoon pumpkin frappacino couldn't salvage the fact that all you wanted to do was curl up in a ball and SLEEP!!!  And worse, despite those dreary skies.....it was still soooooooooooooooo HUMID out!!!  Bleh!!!  So we blasted our fake Arctic tundra (aka-the air conditioner that I am so. very. tired of using!) and got our full-out comfort food on...

It doesn't get much more cozy than Corn Bread topped Taco Bake....

We swapped out the ground beef for chicken, and tossed in a can of black beans for an added fiesta!....

All before topping and baking with the lovely little cornbread boulders;)....

And now what turned into the biggest bummer of the night:

ok....I'm certainly not saying I ever even SLIGHTLY thought these were 'healthy'...but once in a great while, I figured they were alright.  Wellllllllll...that was until I read the ingredients list, which wasn't until AFTER I added the onions to the batter.  That photo may have very well been my last oblivious moment of thinking these things were even MODERATELY OK....aka.-if PALM OIL is the FIRST ingredient on the list, it's probably REALLY bad news....bummer.  Farewell, French Onions:(

But anyway, I digress....despite my horror of the ingredient list, dinner still turned out to be warm & cozy...with a sweet cornbread coating...

Andddddd...another reason "Mexican" came into my mind for dinner last night, was because I had our other non-apple purchase from Terhune staring at me from the fridge all week......

(it was good guacamole...but it was no Tortilla Press!:)

The Xochitl chips, unlike the onions, had a much better ingredient list....

And they were SUPERRRRRRRRR light & crispy!!!  Almost like air!  So light, in fact, that they almost were borderline of not being a good 'dipping chip' :) hahahahhaha  But we managed;)

Soooooo.....despite the CONTINUED rain & cloudy skies, that CANNOT damper the fact that it's FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Which means I'm headin over to Ekat's Kitchen for her weekly potluck party:)

And it also means that tonight is the night of one of my (and I don't think I'm alone here:) most favorite "Fall Parties" of the year!  The gals & I start dreaming about this one sometimes around February 1st;)!  I shall be donning my most FANCY flannel attire and the 'wine-ing & dining' shall commence...hopefully to the tune of a SUPER brisk evening:)  Stay tuned!