Example:

Anonymous friend confession: “I thought condominiums were places adults bought to have sex in. I didn’t know that they are just apartments you owned until I was 14.” (Drunken laughter ensues!)

When it came around to me I was almost too embarrassed to confess. I had some really silly ones that I had kept to myself for years but this is the name of the game.

 “I thought the phrase was “Worth your wild!” Not “worth your while.” Someone corrected me on this earlier this year. I am 27 years old.

“Until I was 13, I thought Charles Mason was a disowned member of The Beatles since writing and going crazy after Helter Skelter.” My mother corrected me, horrified but laughing.

 “Cold-slaw” Which to me still makes sense since it is a cold salad!

 “I thought Prince ripped off the song “When Doves Cry” from the Leonardo Dicaprio/Claire Danes version of Romeo and Juliet.” That movie gave me a lot of problems about love when it came to dating as a teenager and how I desperately wanted to meet my true love through a giant glowing fish tank. 

 Now for the food confession: I don’t know what nutritional yeast is. Well I didn’t know until I wrote this post.

All I knew about it previous to this was: the first time I bought it I thought that they mislabeled fish food, upon first trying it I knew I was hooked and it is insanely good on pretty much everything from pasta, my Ultimate Vegan Nacho Cheese, soups (this one in particular) and sprinkled on roasted potatoes.

 So wtf is nutritional yeast?

“Nutritional yeast is a deactivated yeast, often a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is sold commercially as a food product,” says Wikipedia. Yeast is part of the Fungi Kingdom so no animals harmed!

Nutritional yeast is a complete protein which means it has all the essential amino acids that we humans must consume since we do not produce it ourselves. It is also sugar, gluten and dairy free. Some brands fortify nutritional yeast with B12, which is a vitamin most vegans are lacking. Read the label carefully to see if your local brand contains this vitamin (you will also notice your urine turning an insanely bright colour…too much information? Mark made the joke….”You might think ur-ine trouble….” How do I date this person?? P.S. we did not meet through a fish tank)

Thankfully going gluten free I did not have to give up one of my favourite pantry staple nor one my fav winter comfort foods: mac and cheese. Developing this recipe took some time as I posted on Instagram so long ago my first round of trials. At first I used my nacho cheese recipe minus the ancho chili and poured it onto some noodles but the sauce was way too rich plus an entire cup of cashews runs a little high with Christmas on its way. Scratch that idea.

I had heard of butternut squash mac and cheese before but squash is Mark’s least favourite vegetable and I have certainly had my fill of it already this season. Thanksgiving for us Canadian seemed so long ago. I knew I didn’t want a sweet mac and cheese like so many squash recipes are- it had to be savoury (added fresh rosemary and raw garlic) and cheesy flavoured thanks to the nutritional yeast.

Four rounds of mac and cheese later, I finally came up with this recipe. Am I sick of mac and cheese yet? Not even a little. I even had Mark’s very meat and potatoes friend test it out and he said he wouldn’t know it was squash based if I haven’t told him.

I poured it over some brown rice macaroni but it would taste good on some roasted vegetables too. Perhaps some wilted greens added to the noodle mix to make this a little more grown up and nutritionally dense.

I hope transitioning to gluten-free continues to go fairly smoothly with the exception of all the bakeries around my house smelling extra tempting. I am currently optimistic but ask me again when all the Christmas cookies start coming out…..

The post Rosemary Butternut Mac & Cheese {Vegan & Gluten Free} + WTF is Nutritional Yeast? appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

Until this year, I have worked every Thanksgiving at a barbecue restaurant and it always is a real life hell since the staff is reduced but it is still crazy busy. I am literally running for 6 hours until we close but there is a silver lining to working on this holiday: the annual staff potluck dinner after the shift. All the staff, including those who aren’t working but come in help close down the restaurant: putting up chairs, the endless sorting and rolling of cutlery, bussing tables and cleaning every surface in that place. We all work hard so all of us can sit down and enjoy a meal together. You would think working in a restaurant we would be having meals together all the time but this couldn’t be further from the truth, with the exception of sharing a plate of cold fries.

The people I work with are not just coworkers, they are my friends: we help each other move, go on vacations together, drink (heavily) together and are always there for you when you need them to cover your section so you can shame eat a kid’s dessert in the bathroom before you have a mental breakdown. The last one happens a lot more than you would think.

There are a lot of funny and painfully accurate articles on BuzzFeed on how it is to be a server but my coworkers make it worth it to crack a fake smile to a rude table and speak to them with a voice 10 octaves higher than your normal voice. These people help me in so many ways and I am thankful to them every single time I punch in to start my shift.

When I said I wanted to create this site, not one of them questioned me or suggested that I may be in way over my head, even when I did. They were all supportive, offered their help when they could and have been my taste testers since I started. This post is dedicated to them, the people that make my job survivable, the people who I get silly drunk with, who make my birthday so special every year and the people who I look forward to seeing everyday, hands down my favourite part of my job. I am thankful to all of you.

I hope you are spending your holiday with your loved ones, whether family you are born into or the one you made for yourself. Happy Thanksgiving from Sprouts and Chocolate!

Vegan Thanksgiving Roundup From Blogs I Love:

Fork and Beans: Thanksgiving-themed Foods

Oh She Glows: The Best Shredded Kale Salad

Vegetarian Snob: Comforting Coconut Butternut Squash Fall Soup (Don’t forget to download their 12 Fall Favourite: Vegan Warming Comforting Seasonal Recipes E-Book! I downloaded one and LOVE it!)

This Rawsome Vegan Life: PUMPKIN CASHEW CREAM CAKE with CHOCOLATE SAUCE

Post Punk Kitchen: Stuffed Thanksgiving Burger 

Lunchbox Bunch: Ginger-Maple Fall Spiced Tofu Cubes 

The post Lentil-Stuffed Roasted Delicata Squash with Savoury Pear & Onion Cranberry Sauce {Vegan & Gluten-Free} appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with family and friends. I am sure everyone is going to try and sneak a bite off your plate with this dish.

Stuffing Dry Mix

•  2 cups whole-wheat sandwich bread, crusts removed and cut into ½ inch cubes
• ½ cup whole pecans, toasted and roughly chopped

This can either be left out overnight to become stale or you can bake it at 200 degrees for 40 minutes. Just don’t forget you have it in the oven and accidentally crank the heat for something else like I did. When the bread is ready, place in a large bowl with the pecans and set aside.

Oh silly me forgetting stuff was in the oven. Thankfully I did not burn down the house, just the bread. With some planning, let the bread cubes sit overnight to become stale.

 Squash Puree

• 1 delicata squash, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 1½ cups low sodium vegetable stock

Over high heat bring stock to boil and add the squash.  Turn down the heat to medium and simmer until squash is fully cooked.

Place stock and cooked squash in a blender or food processor and process until very smooth. This step replaces the eggs in traditional stuffing recipes and adds a great flavour to the stuffing.

Squash Prep

• 2 acorn squash
• 1-tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and cracked pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. To prep you acorn squash, cut a slight amount of the bottom so it is able to stand on its own. Cut 1 inch off the top so it creates a lid for the squash.

Scoop out all the seeds and fibres.

Pierce the squash all over with a fork; coat both squashes (inside and outside) with oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 25 minutes standing up on a heavy-duty baking sheet or broiler pan lined with tin foil. While the acorns are cooking, make the stuffing.

Stuffing Wet Mix

• 3 tablespoons Earth Balance Traditional
• 1 yellow onion, chopped fine
• 1 celery rib, chopped fine
• 2 green apples, peeled, cored and cut into ½ inch cubes
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon cracked black pepper or more to taste
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh marjoram
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh sage
• 1½ cups low sodium vegetable stock

 Do not substitute dried herbs for fresh ones for this stuffing. Fresh ones add more depth and flavour than dried. 

In a 12-inch skillet, melt butter over medium high heat until bubbling.  Add onions, celery and apples and cook until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the seasonings and herbs and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the stock and pureed squash to the skillet and cook for 3 minutes.

Add the skillet mixture to the dry mix bowl and combine with a wooden spoon until fully incorporated.

Add the stuffing to your semi-cooked hollowed out squash. If you have a bit of extra stuffing, add it to a broiler safe loaf pan and cook along side of the squash.

Cover the squash (and loaf pan) with tin foil and add the caps (with a drizzle of oil) to the baking sheet (cut side down) with the stuffed squash. Put it all the oven and cook for another 30-35 minutes.

The squash caps and squash should be easily pierced with a fork. Take the caps off the baking sheet and take tin foil off the tops of the squash and loaf pan and crank oven up to broil. Allow the stuffing to brown for 1 minute keeping a careful eye to ensure it doesn’t burn.

Serve with the caps on top of the acorn squash (like a lid) or on the side.

Let this vegan entree stand tall on your plate this Thanksgiving

The post Roasted Acorn Squash with Apple and Pecan Stuffing appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.