Happy Hallowe'en!

I think I am safe in saying that children aren't receiving meat in their trick-or-treat bags, but who knows? Stranger things have happened. Which means that this Meatless Monday, which happens to also be Hallowe'en, should work out just fine. There are no meat-eating traditions that go along with this holiday, so I think we are safe in just going about our business. But there are a lot of pumpkins around, about which, more later. (A pumpkin teaser on Hallowe'en? Can you stand it or will you skip ahead to the last paragraph?)

I first wanted to mention an excellent new Huffpo piece, which proclaims that Kale is the New Beef. Iron, calcium, fibre, omega 3s, anti-inflammatory and it's a sustainable food? I gotta get me some of this. It has been too long since I featured kale as an ingredient in a recipe, so stay tuned for future references to this powerful leafy green in this space. (Now a kale teaser, too? What is he doing to us?) 

Speaking of sustainable, I also direct your attention to an organization which reports on environmental sustainability, the World Preservation Foundation. They feature a lot of useful information about why reducing the amount of meat we eat is one key to sustainability, in particular that of fresh water stocks. They, themselves, linked me back to a great resource on the Meatless Mondays website, showing the math behind the water cost of meat versus plant protein. Would you be horrified to know that each pound of beef requires 2000 gallons of fresh drinking water to produce? Feeling thirsty? Every single Monday that we avoid eating meat, every single one of us personally saves the planet 22 bathtubs full of water. Since ours is the only planet that features the liquid water required to sustain life, we should probably do all we can to preserve what we've got. That is sustainable eating in action.

And so back to pumpkins - the eating kind rather than the carving kind. You probably guessed, I am featuring pumpkin as a main ingredient for the first time in this week's recipe. This is a hearty, creamy soup that will warm you up just as the weather is turning colder. If soup is not your meal of choice this Monday, Women's Health magazine has been kind enough to publish an MM article specifically featuring healthy pumpkin recipes. Hope you find one or another to your liking. Happy haunting tomorrow!