Autumn arrived in Vancouver with little to no notice and knocked me right off my feet. I went from wearing shorts and a tank top to campus in mid-September to wearing 4 layers of clothing to keep myself alive at camp in Squamish. If it wasn’t for the unlimited hot tea and the warm, hearty meals, I swear Chew and I nearly died of hypothermia that night. While my stomach is ready to eat all da pumpkin things, the rest of my body is not prepared to face Raincover’s return.

Every Canadian outside of Vancouver is probably mocking me for complaining about the cold. Yes, I am aware we get a very mild winter. To be completely honest, I think Vancouver only has 2 seasons: summer and a very long autumn. But my East-coast friends just snapchatted me their gorgeous 20-degree weather this morning. Meanwhile, I’ve already pulled out my blanket scarf (or scarf blanket?) and my selection of loose leaf teas.

Back to the brutally cold camping trip. We went away for a 24 hour retreat as leaders to welcome the incoming first year students. Unfortunately, only 2 of the cabins had heating and the rest of us slept in what were essentially massive cooler bags where the temperature inside was the same as outside. If we had known there were heated cabins, I would’ve willingly slept on the floor. I literally had to completely zip myself up in my next to useless sleeping bag and remained frozen in a fetal position until sunrise. We were all counting down the hours until it was time to get up so that we could scurry over to the dining hall where there would be heat. People in the heated cabins complained about sweating all night while the rest of us just gave them the ‘are you for realz’ look as our legs and toes remained frozen for the rest of the trip. On the bright side, the chef there deserves a round of applause for making sure all us veg-heads were well fed, and warm. Good food always cures.

And mac ‘n cheeze is always considered good food. Our vegan cheeze sauce is fail-proof and a crowd-pleasing. Chew and I were both going to bring it to a birthday potluck; good thing we asked each other what we planned to bring or else it would’ve been a mac ‘n cheeze party. We’ve used butternut squash in place of pumpkin and also paired our classic cheeze sauce with fun toppings. Keep your mac ‘n cheeze game strong by playing with seasonal variations, like this pumpkin one topped with a crispy tortilla chip and pumpkin seed topping. This would be a fantastic (vegan-friendly!!) side dish for the Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner table.

The full recipe can be found on the Que Pasa website.

Disclaimer: This recipe was created for Que Pasa Mexican Foods. We received free products and monetary compensation for our recipe development. We only recommend products to our readers that we have tried and approve of.