Chobani is my favorite ingredient...

Today is casual Friday at work.

I LOVE casual Fridays!!

For a number of reasons that are work related, but one of my top five is getting to wear jeans. I HATE wearing professional clothes to work. The type of work I do, I don't interact with customers—EVER. So casual clothes would do me just fine all week long. But alas, I have my beloved casual day but once a week.

The coolest thing right now, though, is that even though I'm still up 3 pounds since before vacation, I feel PERFECT in my jeans!! They're not snug—AT ALL. They fit me like the jeans fairy made them especially for me.

Dear Blue Jeans,

I love you! Thank you for being so kind to me this morning.

Your pal, Cara

I thought I'd share something with you I made this past week that I REALLY like. I got the recipe from a southern magazine but then tweaked it a bit to my liking.

Of course the major change was taking out the cream cheese and substituting plain Chobani Greek Yogurt. It added a ton of protein to the dish, less fat, and I think added a bit more flavor to it overall.

I don't know if you guys have ever had Polenta, I hadn't. For me, it tasted kinda like a grits or cream of wheat type of dish. It's definitely a breakfast item.

The recipe was called Creamy Pumpkin Polenta but I changed it to:

CHO-Pumpkin Polenta

Here's how to make it:

• Boil 5 1/2 cups water with a tsp of kosher salt then add 1 1/3 cups corn meal. Stir until the mixture is nice and thick and creamy. About 10-15 minutes.

• Remove from heat and add one 6-oz container of vanilla Chobani Greek Yogurt (or you could use plain), 1 cup of pureed (or canned) pumpkin and 1 tsp nutmeg. Stir until well blended.

That's it!

Super easy to make and very, very yummy!! I totally look forward to eating it every morning. The recipe says it makes 6 servings of 3/4 cup each, but mine made seven 1-cup servings. Weight Watcher's points(R) value = 3 pts per cup. The recipe said it was 190 calories, but I'll bet it was less than that once I took out the cream cheese and substituted the Chobani.

This is a great breakfast. Tons of protein. Tons of fiber. Loads of flavor. And something different than your morning oatmeal.

Let me know if you try it. I'm curious how you like it.