A simple creamy pumpkin pie, part pie, part cheesecake in an easy no-rolling press-in gingersnap crust. Totally simple and pleasing! Does anyone else "count" the weeks? Once upon a time in the paper-based dark ages, I kept track of my life with slim leather calendars that numbered the weeks, Week 1 in January through Week 52 in December. Ever since, I use week numbers to track a now-fourteen-year recipe collection from Kitchen Parade, my online food column, and a twelve-year collection of vegetable recipes here on A Veggie Venture. Week numbers? They mark my March of Time. The point? Somehow – how did this happen? – here it is, Week 47 in 2016. And these last remaining weeks of the year that include Thanksgiving and the rush to Christmas? They flyyyyyyyyyyy by in a blur. Since Father's Day, the March of Time here has been punctuated by #PieDayFriday . At first, seven days between pies felt like, well, a week between pies. Now, with the busy-ness of the holidays fa

A spectacular sweet potato pie, an earthy mix of roasted sweet potatoes and chocolate. So I've got this little pie thing thing on. It started at Fathers Day five months ago, this idea to make a pie every Friday. Talk about fun! I call it #PieDayFriday and y'know, whether you bake one pie a year or a couple a week, I'd love for you to join in. Consider that a formal invitation, okay?! Every so often, I'll share a pie recipe that totally worked. This sweet potato pie? It totally worked. Truth is, it's my very first sweet potato pie and out of the gate, it's not like me to make anything but a plain, perfect classic. But thank goodness that the combo of earthy sweet potato and chocolate work so beautifully together. I especially love how the chocolate swirl has almost the same texture as the sweet potato filling. It's like a chocolate sweet potato. Yeah. Good stuff. When you make a pie every week, for #PieDayFriday or just because, there's room/time

Homemade granola with oats, pumpkin seeds and nuts, lightly sweetened with maple syrup and brown sugar, gently spiced with our favorite fall spices. Vegan, gluten-free and high-protein. So you know that little ditty that goes, "Thirty days has September, April, June and November"? Ha! In food-blog-world, you'd think that November had just one day, the fourth Thursday aka Thanksgiving. So we'd best prepare ourselves for an onslaught of shouting. "Make this! No-no-no! Make this !" I'm not without guilt myself, it's why A Veggie Venture has this amazing collection of Favorite Recipes for Thanksgiving's Favorite Vegetables . So while it's not yet written down, my Thanksgiving menu is pretty much set. Yours too? So let's concentrate on the other 29 days, shall we? Let's start with breakfast. Or an after-school snack. Or a pocketful for an afternoon pick-me-up. This is the granola I've made a dozen times in the last year, even my

Today's quick supper recipe: Supper in a flash, a big ol' skillet of rustic and homey sausage, potato and cabbage that turns quite sweet and succulent. Low carb, even with potatoes; even lower carb with turnip. Gluten free so long as sausage is gluten free. For Weight Watchers, just 6 SmartPoints. Ever since my 90-year old father came to live with us last spring, supper's been increasingly an adventure as his appetite becomes increasingly less adventurous. In recent weeks, he's asked for salads from an "American" garden (that means "familiar" vegetables versus a plea for locally grown garden vegetables) and "more meat and more potatoes". (And more cookies and more donuts and more ice cream and more pie, but then, that's a whole 'nother story.) Okay then, I'm on it! This recipe from Lisa at the Homesick Texan is one of a handful of recipes that pleased all three of us at the table and went straight from cryptic notes to a

How to bake a whole pumpkin in the oven, the pros and cons both. Plus, a huge tip, why I've stopped roasting actual pumpkins and instead roast Kabocha Squash (pictured). Fresh & Seasonal, So Timely for Fall Pumpkin Baking! DIY & Homemade Pantry. Great for Meal Prep. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Naturally Gluten Free. Whole30 Friendly.

Today's slow cooker recipe: A "skinny" pot of grits that tastes every so rich, thanks to ripe tomatoes and a tiny bit of blue cheese. Weight Watchers friendly. Naturally Gluten Free. Vegetarian. So there comes the time, about now, when the tomato plants are at the height of their production, when it's suddenly time to start cooking tomatoes from the garden, not just chopping raw tomatoes for salads. They're piling up on the counter, as ripe as can be, you don't want them to go to waste. But as a seasonal eater, you're also not going to pull out all the canning gear to make tomato sauce or something similar. Because, you see, here in the Midwest, garden tomatoes are for August, September and in good years, the early part of October. They're not for winter. And so it came to be last fall. (Yes, I saved this recipe from then, knowing you'd appreciate it now more than then.) Twas a Friday night, the end of a long two weeks. Briefly, we talked a

A hearty corn chowder, laced with zucchini and carrot and pungent with curry. It's the time of year to throw a zucchini into everything we can. I know, I know, it's folly to think a household of three could make a dent in a backyard garden's zucchini production. Could a barnyard of pigs? I wonder. For this soup, however, the zucchini was Plan B, after all, the goal was corn chowder not a mixed vegetable soup. But Plan A's farmers-market corn was wormy, only three of six ears were edible, the other three went straight to compost. But it turns out, I loved the zucchini addition, it not only added volume but also balanced the corn's natural sweetness. Besides? Color! The green inspired the addition of still more color, orange grated carrot.