At the 12 o clock is Portobellos and clockwise: Oyster Mushrooms, King Oysters, Shiitakes and White Button Mushrooms.

 Makes about 2 cups

• 4 tablespoons Earth Balance Traditional
• 1 yellow onion, very thinly sliced, a little over 2 cups
• 1 pound white button mushrooms, about 4 ½ cups thinly sliced
• ½ pound shiitake or king oyster mushroom caps, trimmed and sliced, about 2 cups
• 1-teaspoon fresh minced thyme
• 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
• 1-cup raw almonds
• 1-teaspoon minced garlic, about 1 small clove
• 1-teaspoon fresh lemon juice

 In a large non-stick skillet over medium heat, melt the butter until bubbly and add the sliced onions and cook, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes. You want them to be browned but not blackened, turn down the heat if they are burning.

 Add the mushrooms, thyme, salt and pepper to the skillet and cook for 11 minutes. It looks like a lot of mushrooms raw but they will reduce dramatically. Take off the heat and allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.

 While the mushrooms are cooling, in another skillet toast the almonds over medium heat flipping the nuts frequently for about 5 minutes. Be very careful while toasting nuts, they can go from delicious to inedible in a flash. When the mushroom mixture has cooled and the nuts toasted, add the mixture with the lemon juice and garlic to a high-powered blender or food processor.  If you have a smaller appliance, you will have to do it in batches. I wanted my pate to be very smooth so I used a Vitamix, however I did experiment in my food processor and though it wasn’t as smooth, it was still very tasty.  Serve however you like!

 Now I know this doesn’t look like anything special but it is full of flavour and carnivores will exclaim: This is vegan?!

Sandwiches are weirdly difficult to photograph. I wanted the pate to be in full view but then you don’t see the extra cracked mustard under the lettuce and if  I just put the two together, it just looks like a piece of bread with lettuce sticking out of it. Plain as it may look I ate one of these a day for as long as the pate would last. 

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The foods that Fall has to offer are among my favourites: pumpkins, apples, squash, pears and root vegetables. Best part is you are no longer afraid to turn on your oven to roast all these tasty foods.

I was walking down Bloor and saw a lot of fruit vendors had pumpkins of all sizes. I hadn’t carved a pumpkin in years, probably since my childhood because as a teenager I thought I was too cool to carve pumpkins. I bought two small pumpkins since that was all I could carry on the bus and headed home. Mark prepped the table with some old The Grid newspapers and I got out the markers and pairing knives. We cut the caps off and pulled out all the pumpkin guts and seeds. This was my most dreaded task as a kid. I hated the cold wet fibrous goo that came out of the pumpkin. I always asked my dad to take them out for me but regretted it almost instantly as he would chase me around the yard with a handful of it. I am a grown up now (I use this term loosely) and I took the guts out all by myself (with the help of a wooden spoon). Mark was too consumed with his pumpkin to chase me around with the guts. Before I drew anything on my pumpkin, I envisioned doing this great piece where it was so beautifully carved it would be featured on some Halloween special but then I quickly remembered I have no artistic talent. I wanted to go for Alex from A Clockwork Orange (you know because pumpkins are orange…ha-ha I am so creative) but when that quickly failed all I was left with was a smiley pirate.

Mark cut way too much of his off so his did not turn out the way he wanted it to either. Nevertheless we proudly displayed them in our window and put candles in them. I don’t know what I was thinking as a teenager not wanting to carve pumpkins. Yes it is kind of lame but so are a lot of things that are actually really fun. Pumpkin carving did teach me a lesson in doing lame stuff, if it makes you happy and you think it is fun, why not do it? I told a few friends that I carved a pumpkin they seemed a little bummed that they hadn’t carved one of there own this year. With this post, I had meant to put up a pumpkin seed recipe but unfortunately during the clean up Mark accidentally threw them out. Oh well. Here is a No-Sugar Added Apple Butter recipe that I made while we carved pumpkins.  This recipe can be halved but it does take a lot of apples to make apple butter. I used 14 cups of chopped apples (about 16 medium sized apples) and it only made 3.5 cups of apple butter. Use a variety of sweet and tart apples for this recipe. I used Royal Gala, Jonagold, Golden Delicious (sweet) and Cortland (tart).

For the juice

• 5 medium variety apples, cored and diced
• 1 cup of water

In a high power blender or food processor, puree apples in the water until it looks like applesauce. Place a milk nut bag or fine mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth over a large bowl. Transfer pureed apples to bag or strainer and strain the juice out of the pulp. If you have a juicer, feel free to juice the apples. You should have a little over 2 cups of juice. Add water if you are short on juice. If you are short on the kitchen appliances, you can substitute 2 cups of apple cider but I cannot guarantee it will be sugar free.

Apple Butter 

• 16 medium variety apples, cored and diced (about 14 cups)
• Pinch of kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or apple cider
• 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon

 Add apples, juice or cider, salt and acid to a large pot over medium low heat. Cover with a lid and cook apples for 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally. After the 1.5 hours, transfer apples to high power blender or food processor (in batches) and puree until very smooth. Pour the puree into a fine mesh strainer over the now empty pot and sieve out any apple peels that haven’t pureed fully. You want super smooth apple butter. Cook for an additional 1.5 hours with the lid propped open with a wooden spoon. The mixture gets very bubbly and you don’t want to be burned. Stir occasionally until it is a light to medium brown.

Now this is the time to season it. Take the pot off the heat and start by adding ½ teaspoon of cinnamon at a time and gradually increase it to your taste. I love cinnamon so I added the full two teaspoons. The butter will darken as you add more cinnamon. I love to spread apple butter on toast with some Earth Balance but you can do whatever you like. Use as a wet ingredient in muffins or cake loafs instead of eggs. 

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 Pasta

• 1 454g package of elbow shaped brown rice pasta
• 2 tablespoons Earth Balance Traditional butter
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
• ½ teaspoon hot sauce
• ¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
• 1/8 -teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 medium cauliflower, chopped into bite sized pieces (about 4 cups)
• 3 cups unsweetened almond milk
• 1/3 cup chopped roasted red pepper (jarred is fine)
• 1 cup nutritional yeast
•  2 heads of broccoli, chopped into bite sized pieces (about 2 cups), steamed
• 1 tablespoon Earth Balance butter (for the pan)

Topping

• 2 cups panko crumbs
• ¼ cup melted Earth Balance butter
• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Pinch of kosher salt

In a large pot, bring 10 cups of water to a rolling boil. Add the pasta and bring heat down to medium and allow to simmer until pasta is al dente. While pasta is cooking, in a medium pot melt the Earth Balance over medium heat until bubbly and add the onions. Cook until onions are softened, about 8 minutes. Add the mustard, salt, paprika, hot sauce and peppers and cook until fragrant about 30 seconds. Add the cauliflower, almond milk and red pepper to the pot and bring to boil. Allow to simmer for about 15 minutes until cauliflower is fully cooked.

Take pot off heat and stir in yeast. Transfer mixture to a high power blender or food processor and blend until very smooth. You should have about 7 cups of sauce. Remove one cup of sauce from the food processor and set aside. Butter a 13×9 Pyrex pan and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Drain the pasta and spread out on a paper towel lined baking sheet. Water is the enemy of any creamy sauce so dry the pasta.

In a very large bowl combine the sauce, pasta and cooked broccoli. With a spatula gently coat the pasta and broccoli with the sauce until well coated. Transfer to the Pyrex pan and spread evenly.

In a small bowl mix the panko topping until combined. Sprinkle on top of the pasta and bake for 15 minutes until the panko is golden brown.

Let cool for about 5 minutes and transfer to a serving plate with a flipper.

What do you like to put on your Mac and Cheese? What is your favourite comfort food? Leave your comments below!

P.S. Ok why the extra cup on the side? I found that the whole 7 cups was too wet for the pasta and yes you can increase the pasta but I didn’t want you to have to buy two pounds when using so little of the second. However an extra cup of cheese sauce in the fridge? Heck yes. Put on steamed broccoli, corn chips or whatever you like. 

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Makes 3.5 cups

•  2 firm bartlett pears, peeled, cored and chopped
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup evaporated cane sugar
• 1 12 ounce bag fresh cranberries, picked through and rinsed (I used Ocean Spray since it is readily available in most grocery stores this time of year)

In a medium saucepan, add the chopped pears, cinnamon, water and sugar to a boil over high heat.

Stir in cranberries and return to boil.

Turn heat down to medium and allow to simmer for about 7 minutes until most of the berries have burst.

The sauce will thicken as it cools. Transfer to serving dish and bring down to room temperature. Serve.

How easy was that? No more canned sauce for this girl. What is/was the most dreaded holiday food item for you?

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In this recipe, I am using cooked dried beans since I make a large batch of chickpeas weekly. I replaced the oil found in most hummus with the cooking water from the beans. I got the idea from a pasta sauce recipe as odd as it sounds. To thin out of thick pasta sauce, the recipe suggested adding the pasta cooking water to the sauce to give it a better consistency. I tried this with the chickpea cooking water and I received a wonderfully smooth and flavorful hummus. You can use canned chickpeas but I would suggest using some olive oil to boost flavour and obtain a good texture.

 Roasted Garlic Hummus

The only oil in the hummus is from the roasted garlic and it is very minimal (2-3 teaspoons in the ~2 cups of hummus)

•  1½-tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste)
• 5 tablespoons roasted garlic, mashed with a fork (about 2-3 heads, depending how large the garlic heads are. Reserve a roasted garlic clove for garnish. How to Roast Garlic)
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas (How to Cook Dried Beans)
• 1/3 cup chickpea cooking water

Place all the ingredients except cooking water in blender or food processor. Blend until fairly smooth, scraping the sides as needed. With the blade running, in a steady stream slowly add the cooking water. Blend until very smooth, about 1-2 minutes depending how powerful your blender is. Transfer to bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so the flavours can meld together. I topped mine with 1-tablespoon parsley but 1 roasted garlic clove would be an excellent topper too.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

•  1-tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste)
• 1/3 cup roasted red pepper strips + 1-tablespoon chopped for garnish (How to Roast Bell Peppers)
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas (How to Cook Dried Beans)
• 1/3 cup chickpea cooking water

Place all the ingredients except cooking water in blender or food processor. Blend until fairly smooth, scraping the sides as needed. With the blade running, in a steady stream slowly add the cooking water. Blend until very smooth, about 1-2 minutes depending how powerful your blender is. Transfer to bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so the flavors can meld together. Top with 1 tablespoon chopped roasted bell pepper.

Variation: Add ½ teaspoon hot curry powder to the red pepper hummus for a sweet and spicy flair.

What type of hummus is your favourite? Favourite brand of hummus or a homemade variation of your own? Do you always use chickpeas or have another hummus like dip with another bean? Feel free to leave your comments below!

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