I love football. My son Kyle is a senior in college this year and just completed his last season playing on the football team. I can’t resist bragging just a little! Kyle played left tackle on the offensive line for Bethel University (Go Royals!). They made it to the semi-finals in the NCAA Division III Championship this fall. It was soooooo much fun!

If there is one thing my dad has instilled in me since I was little, it is the love of football. Of course he has taught me many other important things, but football is high on the list. Football games have always revolved around a couple of things for me: fun times with family and friends, team pride and of course… food.

So…do you have all of your Christmas shopping done yet? This is the question that keeps haunting me. Everyone has been asking me this with the holiday drawing near and quite frankly, no I don’t! I mean, I have the main gifts purchased- for my mom, dad, sister and the fiancé…but there are a lot of people that I want to give a little something to, but I have no idea what to get them.

For Halloween, I’m not into all the gore and vampire stuff, but I do love to make fun food. I like to make spaghetti with eyeballs – I make meatballs and put a green olive with pimiento in the center for a little creepy fun – and I make Spider Web Dip.

Every October Land O’Lakes Test Kitchens holds a bake sale to benefit the United Way. Everyone in the department rallies together to bake a multitude of yummy treats. One of the most popular treats we make is Favorite Caramel Corn. This year we plan on making approximately a dozen batches of this recipe. We then portion the caramel corn into small gift bags to sell at the bake sale to our fellow employees. We’ll have close to 100 bags of caramel corn. This event has become so popular there is typically a line of people waiting for us to open on sale day. This delicious caramel corn is one of the first treats to sell out.

For us - and many of our friends - weeknight dinners are a toughie. Both spouses are working all day, and we are still terrible at planning ahead, so it's rare to have meat defrosted and a meal ready to start when we get home. We are working on that, but in the meantime, this dilemma usually leaves us rummaging for an appetizer to tide us over while we set to work on the main course.