Fall has arrived!

The weather has been so nice lately, and this change in season has changed what foods I've been craving! I made a big meal of what I thought was fall foods last Monday. Parker argues that my menu wasn't very autumnal, but we agree that it was delicious one way or the other.

The best part of the meal was the "Rustic White Beans and Mushrooms" with a sage-walnut breadcrumb crust, a recipe from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I used a pressure cooker to prepare the beans for this recipe to save time. Recently, my MaMaw and the new owners of the B&B gave me pressure cookers that they didn't wan't anymore. The cooker from the B&B doesn't work yet (it needs a new gasket and to have the old one scraped and sanded out), but the cooker my MaMaw gave me has never been used and is in perfect condition. Using a pressure cooker makes preparing beans SO much easier! I have been cooking dried beans for some time now, but I hate having to remember to soak them. The pressure cooker takes dried unsoaked beans about 25 minutes to cook (here is a link to cooking times for different beans).

The other parts of my feast were blanched kale, and spicy broccoli and capers ( aka: "Sicilian-Style Broccoli" from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen cookbook by Donna Klein).

For desert I made a pear and whiskey crumble. I tried to make this a little bit healthier since the beans were so decadent! I boiled three peeled and sliced bosc pears in about 1/4 c. Jim Beam whiskey. Once the pears were fairly soft I added 3 spoonfuls of sugar. I let that boil for a few minutes stirring constantly until thickened and then removed it from the heat. For the crumble I mixed a handful of oats with a few tablespoons of coconut oil, a spoonful of sugar and some diced walnuts. I put this on top of the pear mixture in a ramekin and baked it for 20 minutes or so. It turned out really well! Whiskey and Pears are best friends!