Vegan Mofo day 7: get your orange on.

It's getting to be that time of year when I get super excited about all things orange and sweet and fabulous. Pumpkins and winter squash, my friends. This past weekend I attended the Pumpkin Festival in Milton, WV with Michael and our friends Becca and Max. If you remember from last year, we mostly go in order to buy locally made foodstuffs like cornmeal and pumpkin butter and salad dressings and whatnot. This year there were pumpkin milkshakes...everywhere. Michael and I got a little sad that we couldn't have one, so a couple days ago I got the fixings to make them ourselves!

punkin.

Also showcased is some lovely pumpkin butter from the festival. The milkshakes were super easy to make...I didn't measure (of course), but it's just vanilla soy ice cream, pumpkin puree, some soymilk, and a little bit of pumpkin pie spice. Yum! They were especially yummy paired with some vegan gingersnaps we found at the store. Next time I want to make a blizzard-style thing with a thicker mixture and some crumbled gingersnaps added to the whole shebang. This was a perfect treat on an evening where my throat was feeling crappy and sore. And probably healthy too - I mean you never know.

punkin's favorite cousin, butternut squash

I am a huge butternut squash fan. The eating of them, that is. I really hate dealing with the preparation, but luckily, Michael made this dinner for me on the first evening that I was feeling sick. He roasted the squash with some olive oil and just a pinch of cinnamon sprinkled on top. It was perfectly cooked...tender and sweet. Mmmm! He also whipped up the lemony roasted potatoes from Veganomicon and a felafel loaf from a box mix to which he added some chickpeas, peppers, onions, and tomatillos. Luckily, my cold is mostly in my chest (luckily?) so that I can still taste stuff. This was an excellent and filling meal. Those potatoes are spectacular. If you haven't tried them yet, you should!

super sick meal

Another night when I was still feeling icky and Michael wasn't feeling too hot either, we just had a simple supper of storeboughts. That's butternut squash soup from Imagine, some roasted pine nut hummus, and Triscuits. Super easy to make and to eat. Sometimes we just don't feel like cooking. It happens, people.

almost as good as winter squash - sweet potatoes

This is something I made before we got sick, but it is completely worth mentioning and also falls under the category of wonderful orange foods. This is the cumin-lime tofu from VegNews. You guys should totally sign up for their newsletters and join the recipe club, because they send you all these awesome recipes straight to your inbox and they rule! This tofu was out of this world delicious. They suggested pairing it with sweet potatoes, so I made a mash of sweet potatoes and a regular potato or two. That's lightly steamed broccoli with lemon zest in the back. I can't wait to make this one again. So good! I can't link to the recipe because it's only in my email and not on their site, but that's just another reason why you should sign up yourself!

Feel like making something orange for dinner? What are some of your favorite ways to cook these squashes? I need suggestions, so I don't get sick of them by January!