Squash Season

It's Squash Season! Not Squash, the sport for rich people in white polos, but Squash, the genre of autumnal vegetables! Behold! The season of pumpkin pie and butternut alfredo is upon us! We vegans especially love our pumpkins. This time of year you can't look at a vegan blog without seeing a recipe for acorn squash stuffing or at least a pumpkin cappuccino. It's a race to the finish to see who can find a way to successfully brush their teeth and shampoo their hair with pumpkin and make it look trendy. Anyways, I'm for it.

The farmer's market in autumn is a magical place. A whirlwind of squashes in all varieties, pumpkins the size of your head or your fist, heaps of root veggies in colorful piles, cider by the gallon and a spectrum of greens from rainbow chard to purple kale. The farmer's market may leave you pennyless, but at least you'll be flush with squash.

I picked up a variety and carried them home hurriedly so I could hack them in half and roast them until toasty brown. I don't exactly mess around when it comes to squash. I take squash seriously. And my squash got seriously roasted.

Once done, I packed them all up in foil and tupperware for the week to come, and we got squash for days.

There's something I like about roasting a whole pumpkin, start to finish. It's not always practical, especially in like, July. But I had a good time roasting this pumpkin, no lie. When you do it this way, you can peel the skin right off, and it's pretty effortless. If you're serving it in wedges or cubes, just chop it up, or if you're making pumpkin pie brownies, throw it in a blender. Save the can for a rainy, or hot day.

This little project left me with a goldmine of seeds to toast. It's a job to separate the pulp from the seeds, especially from all 4 squashes, but just look at this pile of toasty, salty, crunchy seeds!!

I of course, as any vegan worth their weight in pumpkins, have been carefully flipping back and forth through the pages of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's newest release, Isa Does It. It's a beautiful, hardcover, full-color book packed with recipes for practical meals that can be made any night of the week. The photography is really beautiful, and so when you make the recipe and plate it up all nice, you are like, "what the hell" because your plate looks like catfood compared to the photo. I try, nonetheless.

With half of my sugar pumpkin, I made the Pumpkin Chimichuri Bowl from the "bowl" section of the book. It has buckwheat soba noodles, black beans and roasted pumpkin spears, smothered in a zippy chimichuri sauce.

This is what fall looks like.

And with the other half of my roasted sugar pumpkin, I made...

Pumpkin Pie Brownies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, a recipe I've been eyeing for years. I have the strangest boyfriend. He hates pumpkin, you guys. Dealbreaker?

Anyways, I always shuddered at the thought of having to eat a whole pan of brownies alone without anyone to help me eat them, but the timing was so right today. After blended I had exactly enough pumpkin left to make these. It was fate. I tricked him into eating one. He cried. Nancy.

Anyways, I will find a way to safely transport these to a place where they will be appreciated, work, perhaps.

Happy Squashing!