1. Sugar-Free Slow Cooker Spiced Apple Butter Recipe

Get your mind, body, and soul in the autumn mood with this deliciously pure apple butter recipe. Not only will your body love the guilt-free spread but your house will luxuriate in the apple and cinnamon aromas.

2. Vegan Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie with Chickpeas and Currants

Shepherd’s pie is reminiscent of heavy, comfort sustenance in the thick of cool weather months. However, this recipe gives the dish a light, vegan twist, without stinting on the comfort aspect.

3. Dairy-Free Butternut Squash French Toast

I mean, if this title isn’t convincing enough, I don’t know what is!

4. Caramelized Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Zaatar-Spiced Almonds

Brussels sprouts make for a fuss-free side dish in autumn, and are ideal for the plant-based dieters out there, simply because they fill you up without weighing you down. This recipe adds a little zest and crunch to the mix.

5. Scalloped Sweet Potato Gratin with Butternut Squash and Cashew Cream

What I love about this recipe is that it maintains the appeal of a potato gratin – warm, dense, and creamy – but makes each bite far more satisfying for the conscience.

6. Spaghetti Squash Pizza

There are spaghetti squash noodles and there is spaghetti squash pizza. Alas, there is more to do with spaghetti squash than live up to its namesake. Try out this pizza for a lighter, lower-carb alternative to regular pizza.

7. Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Sherry Wine Reduction

This Brussels sprouts recipe takes a more sophisticated turn with a sherry wine reduction. The result is a dish that combines plant-based bulk with sweet, sour, and sensuous flavors.

8. Raw, Refined Sugar-Free Caramel Apples

The traditional caramel apple may appear healthy – it’s mostly an apple, after all – but is often overwhelmed by the caramelized sugar coating and various sweet toppings that the apple itself no longer offers a redeeming quality. This recipe for raw, refined sugar-free caramel apples magnifies the nutrition and taste of the apple base. Plus, it’s kid and parent-approved.

9. Crispy Baked Carrot Chips

I’ll take any excuse for a lower-carb chip, and this baked carrot chips recipe is a delicious fill-in for the deep-fried, white potato-based original.

10. Easy Mexican Turkey Soup

This is the only recipe in the list that features animal protein. This recipe for Mexican turkey soup is a great way to reuse leftover turkey after either Thanksgiving or Christmas feasts.

11. Homemade Kimchi

With cabbage in season, it’s the perfect time to make kimchi, a naturally fermented Korean side dish that will boost your gut health and immunity.

12. Vegan Sweet Potato Muffins

Here’s your new go-to morning muffin! It’s vegan and infused with sweet potato flavors.

13. Sugar and Gluten-Free Apple Crisp

Did I mention it’s vegan, too? You don’t need white flour, white sugar, and lots of both to achieve that crave-worthy crisp atop tender, aromatic apples.

14. Vegan Pear Bread

A slice of this pear bread makes for a healthy snack or breakfast. It’s based in whole-wheat flour and fresh pears, sweetened with turbinado sugar, and boosted with cinnamon, vanilla, and lemon.

15. Zesty Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad

Shaved Brussels sprouts provide more texture to the average salad, and you’ll get those coleslaw vibes without the mayonnaise. This recipe features fresh mint, red pepper flakes, lemon, and parmesan cheese.

16. Cheesy Baked Farro with Cauliflower

When the weather cools down, cooked grains step up to provide the bulk we all need to get ourselves through the fall and winter seasons. In this recipe, the ancient grain farro is used as a base for a mac and cheese-like dish that is as cheesy as the original.

17. Vegan Pear Pie

Who said apple pie is the end all, be all? Two can play that game. This vegan pear pie is like apple pie, only better.

18. Carrot Soufflé

Soufflé just got a lot less chocolate-y and a lot more autumnal with this root vegetable version.

19. Gin Cocktail with Poached Pear Simple Syrup

This list wouldn’t be complete without a boozy addition.

20. Immunity-Boosting Winter Vegetable Soup

Nothing warms the senses like soup does, and this vegetable soup is no exception.

21. Cabbage Salad Recipe with Radishes, Walnuts and Mint

I tend to stick to the same salad, each and every day, but every so often I crave more inventiveness that reflects seasonal ingredients and challenges my palate. Enter this unique cabbage salad that uplifts the senses whilst grounding the spirit.

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The post These 21 Scrumptious Fall Recipes Will Keep You Healthy, Too appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’re halfway through autumn, and with the season come colorful leaves, a crisp, cool air and plenty of pumpkins and apples to delight your senses and tide you over for the months to come. It is a magical time of year that reminds you of the beauty in change. For many, it is the best time of the year to luxuriate in Mother Nature’s offerings as well as be genuinely inspired. The following 20 quotes about autumn reveal the indubitable glory in this oh-so-special season.

Fall is perhaps my personal favorite among the four seasons, mostly because it strikes the perfect balance between hot and cold weather, with a slight lean towards the cooler side. You can still enjoy outdoor activities under the sun, which dramatically pierces through the gaping edges of tree foliage, and feel comfortable with just a light sweater – never overheated, never too chilled. Meanwhile, you are able to sit back and bask in the sheer beauty of the falling leaves and their various colors – yellow, red, pink and brown. The flavors of autumn also get me excited – I love the seasonal spices, squashes and fruits that appear on the menu and bring incredible taste to my meals. Understandably, I am not alone. These 20 quotes about autumn are testament to why the season is so beloved.

Quotes About Autumn

1. “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” – Albert Camus

2. “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” – L.M. Montgomery

3. “I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” – Henry David Thoreau

4. “Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?” – Dodie Smith

5. “Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.” – Yoko Ono

6. “Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they’re falling like
they’re falling in love with the ground.” – Andrea Gibson

7. “Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.” – William Cullen Bryant

8. “There is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the annual cascade of autumn leaves.” – Joe L. Wheeler

9. “Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.” – Jim Bishop

10. “No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.” – John Donne

11. “A wind has blow the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known Autumn too long.” – E.E. Cummings

12. “I love like a leaf in the wind. Please, hold your applause until the end of the performance (the last day of fall).” – Jarod Kintz

13. “I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

14. “Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.” – Emily Bronte

15. “Delicious Autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” – George Eliot

16. “By all these lovely tokens September days are here, with Summer’s best of weather and Autumn’s best of cheer.” – Helen Hunt Jackson

17. “Autumn’s the mellow time.” – William Allingham

18. “Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.” – Lauren DeStefano

19. “Days decrease, and Autumn grows, Autumn in everything.” – Robert Browning

20. “Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flower we more than gain in fruits.” – Samuel Butler

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Photo Credit: lee

The post 20 Inspiring Quotes About Autumn appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’ve got streaming movies with a seasonal twist.

Who is ready for cool weather, long sleeves and freshly baked pumpkin bread?! I know I am. To celebrate the fall season, the best season ever (If you don’t agree, I’m sorry), we’ve gathered some awesome streaming movies that show why fall is just so darn magical.

Streaming on Netflix (free with subscription)

1. “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”: Steve Martin and John Candy are the best in this offbeat, Thanksgiving film. The movie follows Martin as he tries to get home for the holiday. As the movie’s title suggests, he has to take a plane, a train and an automobile to get home, all while dealing with the well-meaning, but totally frustrating Candy.

Streaming on Amazon to rent (as low as $2.99)

3. “Scream”: Get in Halloween mode early (I started on August 1) by watching this classic horror movie. It follows a group of students as they try to survive the deadly clutches of a murderer.

4. “Pieces of April”: This Thanksgiving movie follows April as she prepares Thanksgiving dinner for her family. Thing is, April is estranged from her family and the reunion is a tad, well, complicated.

Streaming on Hulu Plus (free with subscription)

5. “October Sky”: This film just exudes the fall season. (Heck, the best fall month is even in its title!) The movie tells the story of Homer, a young man, who is “destined” to work in his town’s big industry – coal mining. But Homer begins to want a different future (one filled with rockets and exploration) once the 1954 Sputnik launch gets on his radar.

Streaming on Vudu to rent (as low as $2)

6. “Meet Me in St. Louis”: This is such a simple story, but it’s so great. This 1944 classic film follows the Smith family. The family’s parents have their hands full as they are raising four mischievous women. All is fine and well (as fine and well as life can be with that many offspring) until Mr. Smith tells the family they have to leave their beloved St. Louis for New York. The film’s opening scene occurs on Halloween night and is probably one of the most hilarious – and pretty true to real life – replication of how families interact on film.

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Image: Beverley Goodwin

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