Actually, I wasn’t really planning to bake this time around. Rather, I embarked on a more ambitious project, that of making fudge. This is basically candy making, and if you’ve ever made fudge or caramel or what have you with boiling sugar, you know it’s an even more precise science than baking. Everything must be carefully monitored, the temperature and timing, with candy thermometers and kitchen timers. And, it takes a fair bit of patience too.

Anyway, I set about making this vegan pumpkin fudge recipe. I got it all up to a boil, stuck in the thermometer and was watching it to reach the prescribed temperature for fudge. Alas, I got a little nervous when it seemed to be taking longer than indicated and I thought for sure I was burning it. Nope, not burnt, just stopped to cool too early.

The above picture looks really ugly, but I assure you it smelled delicious. What you see there is a big blob of light vegan margarine and pumpkin pie spices remaining untouched, as instructed, while the pot of pumpkin/sugar mixture cooled in the sink.

Still cooling above.

Finally, I could stir… and stir… and stir… and stir… and whip… and fold… and…

Here’s when I realized, as my hands so achingly informed me, this stuff was never going to harden as it was supposed to. It didn’t reach the right temperature way back in step one, so it would forever remain a thick, sweet, pumpkin “stew.” I threw it in the fridge against all hope and pondered my next step.

Eventually, I decided to make cookies instead and figured, hmmm, I have all the sugar, fat, and fall-inspired spices one could ever want in that one bowl, why not use it in place of those ingredients in the cookies?

The result, some more decadent ingredients later, was the following happy accident. The most wonderfully spicy, thick, chewy, and sweet, peanut butter, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies you could imagine. The peanut butter definitely won the day over the pumpkin, but I knew it was in there, so that made them Thanksgiving fare enough for me.

Here’s the final recipe for the record, should you be crazy enough to ever want to purposefully create a monster…

Dry
• 30 g (1/2 cup) buckwheat flour
• 30g (1/2 cup) brown rice flour
• 60g (3/4 cup) old-fashioned oatmeal (*)
• 30+g vegan chocolate chips

Wet
• 6 Tb pumpkin fudge mix (underheated)
  you’ll still have tons left for more batches
• 4 Tb chunky peanut butter

Instructions
1. Make and refrigerate botched pumpkin “fudge”
2. Preheat oven to 350°F
3. Combine dry ingredients
4. Mix wet ingredients
5. Pour wet into dry and mix
6. Plop 8 big cookies onto parchment-lined baking sheet
7. Bake for 10 minutes
8. Rotate sheet 180° and bake another 8 minutes
9. Remove from oven and let cool
10. Eat and share

(*) If you take care to get the oatmeal not processed in a plant that makes wheat products, etc., and check your other ingredients, this recipe would be gluten free.

In addition to the trees’ colorful, hibernation preparations and the crisp, cool air, I like this time of year for the hearty food, particularly all variety of winter squash and pumpkins.

Recently, the question came up in the Fat Free Vegan Yahoo! Group of what to do with an acorn squash.

I shared how I like to prepare it (really, any winter squash works well with this treatment), and it was a big hit. So, here you go. I leave the exact proportions to your taste buds. Remember, tasting is a sign of a good chef.

Preheat the oven to 350-425°F, depending on how much time you have to wait. Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds (save ‘em for later roasting), and place cut side down on a lightly oil-spritzed, tinfoil-lined, baking sheet. Bake for 40 minutes to an hour in inverse proportion to the temperature you chose. You really have a lot of leeway here. Basically, you want it to be nice and soft and starting to caramelize on the edges.

Take out of oven and let cool until you can handle it more comfortably. Scoop out the goods and mix in my Three C’s:

• cinnamon
• chipotle powder
• cumin

Garlic in any form is also a welcome guest in this dish. If you want it sweeter, drizzle in some pure maple syrup. Mmmm…

Finally, for some texture, stir in a little diced sweet onion and raw broccoli for texture. This old standby never gets old for me. It turns out ever so slightly different each time, as I don’t measure the spices.

By the way, a note for my fellow calorie restrictors. Pumpkin appears to have the fewest calories by weight. I just had a big bowl of freshly baked pumpkin made this way today, and the roasted seeds, similarly spiced, as a snack. Enjoy!