Vegan Mofo: Autumn Equinox Eats

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I have a love-hate relationship with fall. The cooler temps are nice, but I prefer the scorching heat. My birthday and Halloween/Samhain are in October, and I love me some pumpkin. But I'd trade those for an endless summer with tomatoes forever. Still yet, there's nothing I can do to stop the changing of the seasons. So I might as well accept it.

And the one thing that gets me through the "prelude to the winter" are the hearty, autumn meals — corn dishes, soup, chili, pumpkin everything. Tonight, I celebrated Mabon — the pagan Autumn Equinox holiday — with an amazing meal that just might have pushed me into the realm of autumn acceptance.

I started the day off summer-style with a run followed by a power bar, and for lunch, I had a cocoa banana smoothie and salad rolls from the new I Love Juice Bar in Midtown. But by this evening, I was ready to face the truth — autumn is here. So I whipped up these Corn Pancakes with Black Bean Salsa and Savory Sour Cream from Cooking By the Seasons.

Cornmeal cakes flecked with hot peppers are fried on a griddle and topped with a spicy black bean salsa (okay, my version was super spicy because I added Paul's homemade Trinidad Scorpion hot sauce). That's all topped off with vegan sour cream seasoned with lime juice, cumin, and cinnamon. Wow! If I can eat like this all season, I might be okay with it.

On the side, I had a Salad with Apples, Toasted Walnuts, & Ginger Vinaigrette, also from Cooking By the Seasons. The apple in the salad was from the Memphis Farmers Market. Also in the salad were raisins and red onions. And the ginger vinaigrette was made with sesame oil (mine was sesame-chili oil, so it was spicy), which added an interesting kick.

Basically, everything in this meal was spicy, just the way I like it. I washed it all down with Our Daily Red organic, vegan table wine.

No Equinox celebration is complete without a cakes & ale ceremony (I used my red wine instead of ale though because it's what I had). For my cake, I picked up a Caramel Apple Cupcake from Pink Diva Cupcakery — vanilla cake stuffed with caramel apples, topped with buttercream and a caramel drizzle. Imagine a caramel apple in cupcake form. Mmmmm.

If you can't beat autumn, join it, right? Happy Mabon, y'all!