Mid December has already crept up on us, as it has a serious track-record of doing. I've been working like crazy, like always, but the short days really make you feel like all you do is work. I come home from a long day and just make soup from Isa Does It. I get so pissed when I have too many leftovers and can't cook more soup. I need to be cooking soup every night. I need this, you guys.

The Pesto Soup with Gnocchi, Greens and Beans from Isa Does It was so perfect for a freezing cold blizzardy day. I loved how it could be both crazy healthy and crazy delicious simultaneously. Instead of cashews, like usual, it's made creamy by pureeing cauliflower cooked in broth with onion and garlic. Pesto is stirred in later, and BAM! Your kitchen smells like a plentiful pot of toasty garlic and creamy salty goodness. This soup hugs you and tells you "you're beautiful", "quit your job", "relax", "you don't watch too much television", and "your hair looks great today." I was all like, "Thanks, soup!"

And then I made this one. Cheddary Broccoli Soup from Isa Does It. This is the real stuff right here. It is cheddary, creamy, salty, and all the things one loves about broccoli cheddar soup, now without added chicken base, or any cheddar whatsoever! It doesn't just do the trick for taking away a craving for broccoli cheddar soup, it is the soup! It's like when you're at a party, and the host orders a party-sized pizza for everyone, but orders you a mini cheeseless pizza that has like a million green peppers, a drop of sauce and 1 olive. Maybe it has onions too, but it's underwhelming to say the least, and everyone is hovering around you and your shitty pizza and you smell the regular pizza and are all like F&@!K I WANT PIZZA and so you eat the pizza your nice friend ordered you, and you're just sad. You craved the real thing, and your pizza didn't live up to it. So anyways pretend like your friend had a soup party and everyone had broccoli cheddar soup from Panera, but you got this soup. You'll be like WOW THIS SOUP IS REALLY AWESOME and forget about what all the other people are eating, because yours is better. You know? It's that kind of soup.

Me and my BF have been making pesto for eons now, and I've tried variations on making it less oily, like using more nuts and adding less olive oil, or using water-- don't do that, and a number of healthy tricks that don't really work. They just make you want real pesto. So in her book, Isa has a recipe for Oil-free Pesto, which RULES, because it's got lots of flavor, thanks to adding veggie broth, and pine nuts, for the authentic crowd, and nooch for your cheesy nostalgia. It's a perfect storm of awesome, and I didn't feel bad after I ate half a blenderfull of it. I got some pretty sexy yellow cauliflower at the farmer's market to roast up and put into this mix. It's like, once you find yellow cauliflower at the farmers market, your quest to become an earthy-crunchy adult with cash money to blow on healthy food and live in a cool place is now complete. So basically, I'm a swaggy adult now. Also I dig the strand noodles. I feel like I always eat like shells or something nowadays. What gives?

In my quest to become a real adult, I have been drinking fruits and vegetables lately. I drank a massive green juice, but it was quite terrible, gave me no energy, and I actually took a 3 hour nap after hoovering it. That's so un-adultlike. I like when my juices are this pretty orange color, but that means you didn't put many vegetables in it because if you did, your juice would be green. I snuck celery and ginger into the one on the top and spinach and parsley into the one on the bottom. The top one was pretty good, the bottom one was too vegetably. Again, not adultlike. 

Beet Burgers from Isa Does It are so my new go-to veggie burger. They look like beefy burgers, but don't worry, they are just crime-scene red because of the beets. They are real easy to make on a weeknight, especially if your lentils are in a can and your brown rice came from your freezer. Plus they're fun to make. I just kept repeating "Have it be Charred" aloud a bunch of times. 

Not that I was ever a big cheeseburger fan, but here's another example of Isa killin' it, when you're at a cookout, and everyone is shoving meaty pellets in their face, and you smell all the cook-out-nostalgia. You are starting to think about hot dogs, but then BAM, this beet burger arrives all covered in chipotle vegenaise and piled with guacamole, and you're just like I LOVE GUACAMOLE and all the smelly nostalgia is like Presto.

Oh and I made cinnamon rolls. It was the weekend, so. What else would I be doing.

Roasted Yellow Beet Salad from Isa Does It. It has a warm maple-mustard dressing, which is what caught my eye originally, and tempeh croutons. You can make it with toasted pecans too, and I definitely will next time, because the tempeh is pretty salty and the mustard dressing is pretty salty so together it was a little over-salty for me, but the pecan idea is something I'm way into. Plus, look at my pretty yellow beets!

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.

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.

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!