Happy Fall, Y'all

OK, that was a cheesy title for this post, but I'm so darned happy it's fall! Autumn or fall, whatever you call it, it's my favorite season. Not too cold, not too hot (well, down here, it's still pretty hot during the day, but at least at night it's cooler now!), all the changing leaf colors, the Halloween candy (thanks to a fellow vegan blogger for posting vegan candy corn - yay!).... and later, Thanksgiving (this year, a Tofurky, I hope!), which is my favorite holiday next to Earth Day!
To celebrate, I made a chili today, from Extraveganza. This is truly the best cookbook for seasonal celebrations. Every recipe takes special care to use fresh, wholesome ingredients, and the results are always stellar! I love this cookbook :) Anyhoo, here is Vegetable Chocolate Chili Mole! Don't get excited, you really can't taste the chocolate, but it does add a little dark color and richness to the dish. The spices were spot on, and it made a TON! I will actually have to freeze some, I think. At any rate, despite the eighty or so degree temperatures outside, I pretended it was a crisp fall day and made this chili. With carrots, three kinds of beans, celery, corn, tomatoes, three colors of bell peppers, onion, and garlic, it was hearty to say the least. Delish!! Four stars from hubby and me :)
What made this dish so easy, was my mis en place. I started doing this pre-measuring, pre-cutting and laying out of ingredients back when I was in grad school and taking step-by-step photos of recipes for a web site I was making. I still do this mis en place when I can, and today it really helped! I just chopped all my veggies, measured my spices, and the recipe was almost done! This is a super quick (after the prep work) meal.

Last week, I was going to eat pesto till it came out of my ears, since I had so much frozen from this summer. However, after this quick dish, I was "all good" for a while. This was simply whole wheat macaroni, tossed while hot with pesto cubes, some cannellini beans, and some fresh spinach. It was really healthy and hearty, but kind of dry. I'm not the biggest fan of this type of bean - they're too mushy for me. Give me garbanzo or kidney any day! Luckily, the latter are also healthier for me anyway.
While my chili mole was cooking (see above), I whipped up my second batch of Lemony-Herb Tofu, from Dreena's, Vive le Vegan! It looked prettier when I made it earlier in the week (this batch of tofu was a little spongy) but the taste was still great. Fresh and herby and lemony - just like its title! I'm mashing this up with a little soy mayo to make a sandwich spread this week. So easy and so delish! Try it today!
So, I'll leave you with this question of the week: What are you doing for World Vegetarian Day (October 1st) or for Vegetarian Month (October)? My plans are to put out fliers and such in my workplace lunchroom, and to bring in a dish to share once a week. Since lots of people I work with are on diets, I'm going to have to stay away from the cookies and cupcakes I usually ply. Any suggestions as to a good dish that can sit out for a few hours during our lunch periods, is relatively healthy, and appeal to the masses?