Vegan Practically

It’s almost Canadian Thanksgiving and pumpkin is in the air. I’m visiting family this weekend and it’s as if Nora from Nora Cooks was speaking directly to me with her email about the Pumpkin Crumble Bars.

On Thursday evening I made the pumpkin bars, using butternut squash instead of canned pumpkin purée. I roasted the squash and came up a bit short of the amount needed. So I threw in a bit of medium tofu to make up the difference and it did really well. It’s a very easy recipe, with the crust in the bottom made of the same stuff as the crumble on top. The filling is a breeze if you have a blender or a food processor (I used the Cuisinart). You just toss in all the ingredients and blend until smooth.

After I made the bars and of course tested them, I headed out into the night, driving a bit north of the city in search of the Northern Lights. As many of you already know, the Northern Lights forecast for Thursday, October 10th was brilliant for much of Canada and the US. I remember how happy I was not to miss out on the solar eclipse back in the spring, so even though Northern Lights viewing is past my bedtime, I wasn’t going to miss out.

It was a great decision to head to the north edge of the city and position myself on a dark road looking north over a farm field. A professional photographer friend had posted some tips for photographing the lights. I had my tripod and my fastest lens (meaning, the lens with the widest aperture, in my case f/1.4), set the two-second timer in advance (to avoid camera shake) so I was all set, and then jumped in the car.

I now have the night sky photography bug and will continue never to ignore a really good Northern Lights forecast! What an experience watching the lights get brighter and brighter from about 9 to 10:30 (at which point I was cold and tired, and had taken in the wondrous experience enough for one night). And I now know that they show up more brilliantly for the camera than they do to the naked eye.

So between the pumpkin crumble bars and the Aurora Borealis, Thursday was a spectacular night.

It was a toss-up to decide whether to feature a Northern Lights photo or pumpkin crumble bar photo at the top of the blog. The Lights won out, but that is not to say that the pumpkin crumble bars aren’t extraordinary in their own humble way. [p.s. If you’re reading the blog in your email inbox, you need to click through from the email to the blog itself to see the feature photo, which this time (well, I like to think every time) you won’t want to miss]

Bon Appétit!