Best fall recipes without pumpkin

Give pumpkin a rest and celebrate the other flavors of fall -- apples, pears, butternut squash -- with nine easy and delicious recipes.

I didn't mean for this to turn into the pumpkin-less fall. Really. I'm not a hater of pumpkin, as evidenced by all the pumpkin recipes I've posted in the past.

But this year? Can we please just give pumpkin-spice-whatevs a rest?

For just once, let's celebrate all the other stars of fall, too -- apples, pears, butternut squash, acorn squash -- and give pumpkin a day off.

Check out my favorite no pumpkin fall recipes below, with everything from breakfast muffins to crunchy salads and creamy comfort food weeknight dinners to chewy cookie bars.

Make your own kale powder

It's easy to make your own kale powder in the oven or a food dehydrator -- a great way to sneak lots of veggie nutrition into smoothies, soups and more.

When summer begins to wind down, my preserving instincts kick into high gear.

I start to panic: Fall is coming. What will I do without juicy fresh tomatoes? Or handful after handful of fresh basil? Or ripe peaches? Or fresh greens from right outside my back door?

Right now, my freezer is full of peaches, blueberries, strawberries and watermelon for winter smoothies and my pantry is loaded up with marinated dried tomatoes that I can turn into an amazing pasta sauce or layer on pizzas. And making a winter store of pesto and basil chimchurri is on my to-do list for next week.

So what about the greens?

While I have tried freezing heartier greens like kale and collards, they're really only good for soups and stews once thawed, as their cellular structure really breaks down once frozen. The best way I've found to preserve fresh greens is to dehydrate them and turn them into vegetable powders.

In the past, I showed you how to make tomato powder, which is an awesome way to add a huge pop of fresh tomato flavor to soups and pasta sauces or mix with yogurt or salad dressing to create a veggie dip. All it takes is a few hours in a food dehydrator or on low temperature in your oven.

Making greens powder -- in this case, kale powder -- is accomplished the same way.

My favorite use for this kale powder is very sneaky. Regular readers know Mr. Ninj, who never met a vegetable he liked, is my equivalent of mommy bloggers' picky 3-year-old eaters, so I'm always on the lookout for stealthy new ninja-like ways of sneaking vegetables into his diet.

Mixing this kale powder into his morning smoothies has become my secret weapon!

Tomato and ricotta summer sandwich

Layer the ripest, juiciest tomatoes on fresh, hearty bread with ricotta cheese and avocado for the perfect summer sandwich.

I know you're back in school, kids -- well, some of you. The ones that live near me here in the South anyway.

And I know apple-picking has begun in Vermont.

And I know that we're dangerously close to the beginning of OMG-EVERYTHING-PUMPKIN-FEST 2015, but I'm still celebrating summer. ( #stillsummer )

Summer veggies, anyway.

Despite the fact that the squirrels ate every single tomato from my plants as soon as they appeared, let alone waiting until they turned even a tinge of orange, I've been noshing on ripe, juicy tomatoes as often as I can -- especially in tomato sandwiches -- thanks to the many apparently squirrel-less local Kentucky farmers.

For about two years now I've been carrying around a page torn from a back issue of House Beautiful magazine, of all publications, that featured an open-faced avocado sandwich from Gabrielle Hamilton's NYC restaurant Prune.

It caught my eye because it featured tomatoes, avocado and ricotta cheese -- probably three of my most favorite ingredients. Evah.

But I never wound up making it because it was a little too fancy schmancy for me. I don't keep preserved lemon peel, pearl onions and poppy seeds on hand -- and the preserved lemon peel was said to be the star ingredients. (Note: I first typed that as "poopy seeds" which I think is an infinitely better and funnier name and would certainly make them the star ingredient. Well, at least the most interesting ingredient.)

Whatevs. Ninj ain't got that kinda time at lunch, dig?

Basil chimichurri

Basil chimichurri is slightly spicy and full of summer garden-fresh herbs: a perfect marinade for grilled flank steak or skirt steak.

I've been rockin' the hashtag #StillSummer on all my social media posts this month, lest we all get caught up in the back-to-school rush and forget to enjoy the warm, wonderful weather.

Which for me is largely about grilling and eating al fresco!

Truth: Part of why I love grilling so much is because I don't do it -- Mr. Ninj does. Which means that I get a little bit of a break in meal prep whenever we grill. Sure, I still make the salads and sides but it's fun to have my load lightened a little, especially during the week.

(And he's such a good sport. I'll just call out, "You're grilling tonight!" and he's completely OK with it.)

Another reason I'm reminding myself and everyone else that it's #StillSummer is because of fresh summer produce. Seriously, is there a better time of the year to be a healthy eater? I could pretty much live on sun-warmed fresh tomatoes, corn and peaches during July and August and never get sick of them. Plus, the basil in my yard, which, sadly is the only thing that the squirrels and deer haven't completely decimated, is prolific to the point of being out of control.

At this point, I usually make a ton of pesto and pop it into the freezer to enjoy during the fresh-veg wasteland that is winter.

Since I have so much basil this year, I decided to use it to make this riff on chimichurri, substituting basil for the usual cilantro. It turned out to be the perfect sauce marinade for grilled flank or skirt steak.

Sweet and savory summer peach recipes

Enjoy fresh, juicy peaches in not only sweet recipes but also savory ones: try these five easy, delicious recipes while peaches are in season.

PEACHES!!

There, now that I have your attention, let's talk about peaches. I'll admit, there's little better than eating a ripe, juicy peach, still warm from the sun, on a hot summer day. But when I've gotten a haul of fresh peaches, I can't eat all of them single-handedly. After freezing them for winter smoothies or canning them as peach puree for my homemade granola, I turn to these five recipes.

For your sweet tooth, I've got a grab-and-go breakfast muffin, an easy crumble and an unusual cobbler. But peaches are just as fantastic in savory dishes, especially when paired with their summer cousins, fresh tomatoes, or even tangy blue cheese.

Yep, The Ninj is serving peaches for dinner.

9 perfect pumpkin recipes

Get your pumpkin on with these nine pumpkin recipes. With ideas for breakfast, entrees, snacks, drinks and more, you're sure to find a recipe to please every pumpkin-lover's palate.

Before another October draws to a close and we put our pumpkin-spice whatevs obsession on the backburner until next year (well, except for pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, of course), let's take a look at some of The Ninj's favorite pumpkin recipes.

Whether you like your pumpkin in a cool breakfast smoothie, a cheesy comforting pasta dinner or a zippy hummus as an afternoon snack -- or anything in between! -- The Ninj has got you covered with these nine great recipes:

9 fall apple recipes

Nine apple recipes to please every palate -- sweet desserts, savory entrees, pantry staples and a 3-part series on making hard cider.

It's the very last day of September -- so before we start talking nonstop about pumpkin for the entire month of October, I thought I'd share a roundup of my favorite recipes using crisp fall apples, one of my absolute favorite fruits.

Whether you're looking for a sweet dessert, a savory entree, a staple for your winter pantry or just some good old-fashioned DIY hooch, there's an apple recipe here to please every palate.

Final recipe roundup: CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014

All summer long, The Ninj provides weekly produce recipes by request -- here's a roundup of all the healthy, delicious recipes from CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014!

With Labor Day behind us, it's time to wrap up the 2014 edition of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue, my annual summertime feature in which you tell me each week what produce from your CSA share, garden or farmers' market has you stumped for ideas and I provide you with healthy, creative recipe ideas both from my own arsenal as well as from some of my favorite fellow food bloggers.

Phew -- we were busy this year! Here's a list of links to all the produce and recipes we covered this summer (you might want to Pin or bookmark this page!):

11 delicious ways with broccoli (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Enjoy these 11 delicious and unique recipes for broccoli, one of the healthiest crown jewels of the late summer / early fall harvest.

ERMERGAHD, peeps: Where the heck has the summer gone? Labor Day is next week, which means that summer is unofficially over, kids are headed back to school and all the bloggers except The Ninj are going to start inundating you with freakin' pumpkin recipes.

Pumpkin, apples and Halloween ... oh my.

Why can't we all just respect produce seasonality??!!!

One more week until Labor Day means means one last huzzah for the 2014 CSA Share Ninja Rescue, my annual summertime feature in which you tell me each week what produce from your CSA share, garden or farmers market has you at a loss for ideas and I rescue you the following Tuesday with fun, creative recipe ideas, from me and my favorite fellow food bloggers.

As we come up on fall, it's time to enjoy crisp, crunchy broccoli -- a fave of The Ninj, a nemesis of Mr. Ninj, which is why you'll see that so many of my recipes involve disguising it in a pasta dish.

Fresh summer tomato recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Eleven easy recipes -- some traditional, some unusual, all healthy and delicious -- for making the most of prolific, fresh, sun-ripened tomatoes.

I almost can't believe it -- time flies! -- but we're nearing the end of the 2014 edition of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue, in which you can get weekly seasonal produce recipes by request all summer long (Memorial Day to Labor Day). Hopefully you've been playing along, telling me each week what produce from your CSA share, garden or farmers' market has left you stumped for ideas, and I help un-stump you with a list of delicious, healthy recipes on Tuesdays.

I think this is my absolute favorite time of year, veg- and CSA-wise, because the most prolific veggie right now almost everywhere around the country is the tomato. From the most petite cherry to the giant slicers, fresh tomatoes taste to me like nothing else on earth. And while I'm happiest eating them plain, topped with a little crunchy sea salt, I've pulled together 11 delicious recipes that call for fresh summer tomatoes from my favorite food bloggers.

Asian-inspired chicken and broccoli salad

Asian-inspired sweet-and-tangy chicken and broccoli salad, topped with apricots and cashews. A quick and easy recipe, perfect for weeknight dinners.

Hey, hiya! The Ninj's move to Kentucky is complete.

Well, let me clarify. Things completed are the the physical moving of goods from Vermont to Kentucky in a big-ass tractor trailer and my arriving in Kentucky by pulling off a spectacular pre-murder OJ Simpson run in high-heeled flip-flops through three concourses of the Charlotte airport to avoid (just barely) missing my flight, which had been dramatically re-routed out of my way by the good folks (kidding, really, they're asshats) at American Airlines who bumped me from my original flight to Louisville from Chicago in order to give my seat to a standby "medallion" passenger (oh no, I'm not bitter -- I love being treated like baggage by people who refuse to look you in the eye or answer your questions directly), thus arriving in Kentucky -- sweaty, stressed and sans luggage -- about 20 minutes ahead of my movers.

But I made it. And then so did our stuff (oy, the stuff -- so much stuff, even after giving so much of it away before we left Vermont). So, I am currently knee-deep in cardboard moving boxes and endless reams of packing paper on this end.

More than knee-deep, actually.  Let me show you my new kitchen.

Zucchini-a-rama: 9 summer zucchini recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Just in time for national Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day on August 8, check out these nine delicious recipes for summer zucchini.

Yep, it's another week of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue for 2014, in which you tell me each week what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) has you in a recipe rut, and I shower you with a list of delicious, healthy recipes on Tuesdays. This week, we're talking zucchini!

If you have ever grown zucchini, which seems to produce endlessly, you undoubtedly understand the awesomeness of national Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day, fast approaching on August 8. Mark your calendars NOW, peeps!

If you can't wait until August 8, just do what The Ninj did this year to unload my surplus: I put a giant box of zucchini in front of my mailbox with a sign that said "FREE VEGGIES." Gone by the end of the day. Because people love free shit.

If you're looking for more ideas on how to use up enjoy this ubiquitous squash, take a gander at these nine yummy recipes for some delicious inspiration.

9 craveable corn recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Enjoy these nine delicious recipes for fresh, sweet corn. In soups, salads, pastas, sides and even ice cream, corn is the sunny summer vegetable that everyone craves.

We're about halfway through the 2014 edition of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue, in which you get weekly seasonal produce recipes by request all summer long. Heck yeah! Just tell me each week what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) is giving you fits, and I talk you down from the ledge with a list of delicious, healthy recipes on Tuesdays.

This week, we're talking sweet, fresh corn. Nothing says summer quite like just-picked corn, does it?  But if you're wearying of the usual boiled corn-on-the-cob with a pat of butter, check out these nine delicious ways to enjoy this sunny summer favorite.

9 cool cucumber recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Need new ideas for cucumbers from your garden, CSA share or farmers' market? Enjoy these nine delicious recipes using cool, crisp cucumbers.

Hopefully by now I don't need to remind you how CSA Share Ninja Rescue works -- but I guess I will anyway. You tell me what veg you received (or will be receiving) in your CSA share box or found at the farmers' market that you don't know what to do with, and The Ninj rescues you each Tuesday with a whole bunch of recipe ideas from me and my favorite fellow food bloggers.

Nearly two months into The Rescue (now in its fourth year!), this week we're tackling one of everyone's favorites: cucumbers! Seriously: Do you know anyone who doesn't like cucumbers? (Don't answer that because, if you do, that's just freakin' cray cray and I don't want to meet him or her.)

7 ways to eat yer beets (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Seven unique and delicious recipes for gorgeous summer beets: enjoy them roasted, pickled or even baked into muffins!

Hey now -- welcome to Week 6 of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue for 2014. You know the drill: You tell me each week what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) is giving you fits, and I talk you down from the ledge with a list of delicious, healthy recipes on Tuesdays.

For Week 6, we're talkin' beets. Love me some beets! They are especially delicious roasted but I'm partial to pickling them as well. But have you also considered them for salads? How about burgers? And, best yet, beet muffins?

Behold: Seven unique and delicious recipes for eating gorgeous beets -- all from me and my favorite fellow food bloggers.

13 amazing strawberry recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Enjoy this baker's dozen -- 13 -- gorgeous and delicious strawberry recipes: baked goods, beverages, salads and treats, all showcasing ripe, juicy, summertime strawberries.

Yo, peeps! Welcome to Week 5 of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue for 2014, where you tell me each week what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) you're struggling to use, and I rescue your butt with a list of awesome and healthy recipes on Tuesdays.

Week 5 = strawberries!

OK, I'll admit it -- this week is a bit of a scammy installment of The Rescue. I mean, come on: we both know that no one is ever at a loss for what to do with strawberries, right?

Just. Eat. Them.

But I thought you might appreciate a baker's dozen of amazingly different and delicious recipes for those ripe, juicy strawberries that are showing up at produce stands, farmer's markets and pick-your-own farms all over (including Vermont, finally!). As usual, all these recipes come from my (and hopefully your) favorite bloggers.

Enjoy your strawberries -- and don't forget to stash some in the freezer for the winter!

9 healthy recipes for spinach (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Nine healthy, delicious recipes for using fresh spinach from your garden, CSA share or farmers' market: enjoy spinach for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even in snacks and drinks!

Dudes. It's already Week 4 of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue for 2014. For a month we've been at this -- your telling me each week what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) you're struggling to use, followed by my rescuing you with a list of delicious, healthy recipes on Tuesdays.

We have one of my all-time favorite veggies in the spotlight this week: spinach! Oh how I love it in crunchy salads, layered on sandwiches, paired with hot chicken dishes, creamed into dips, whirled up in a smoothie ... you get the idea. If you need some new-to-you recipe ideas for fresh spinach, look no further than these nine healthy, delicious recipes from some of my favorite food bloggers.

Lemon spinach pesto

Quick and easy lemon spinach pesto made with almonds and parmesan cheese -- enjoy on pasta, pizza, crostini and more. And it freezes well, too!

I rarely think about pesto in the winter. Now, I probably should -- the bright colors would certainly cheer up a dreary, gray December day. I mean, remember my hot pink beet pesto? Ha cha cha, now that's a color!

But when summer rolls around? Awwwww yeah, bring on the pesto, baby.

Pesto is so absurdly easy to make, what's not to love? Whirl up a couple handfuls of plentiful herbs or greens along with some good olive oil, nuts and cheese and -- voila! -- you've instantly got the makings of a quick dinner, appetizer, pizza, you name it.

Once you master traditional basil pesto, start thinking outside the box. Again, remember the hot pink beet pesto? Or my caper pesto? That's some good stuff right there, peeps.

Today I'm suggesting spinach pesto. Yes, spinach -- loaded with vitamins and other healthy, good-for-you stuff. You've been cramming it into sweet smoothies for months now (thanks to Detox January), so why not follow the same principle and turn that spinach into some yummy savory pesto?

Why not, indeed.

For this pesto, I teamed healthy spinach with bright lemon, almonds and parmesan cheese. Rich and nutty but with just the right amount of lemony tang. Wicked good stuff.

Chives and radishes: 6 healthy recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Enjoy six healthy and delicious recipes for all those fresh chives and radishes from your garden, CSA share or farmers' market.

It's Week 3 of the 2014 CSA Share Ninja Rescue, in which you tell me what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) you're struggling to use and I rescue you by offering a list of delicious, healthy recipes each Tuesday.

This week, we're tackling two of the most prolific early seasonal arrivals: chives and radishes.

Produce call, week 3 (CSA Share Ninja Rescue)

Time for the weekly call for produce for the 2014 CSA Share Ninja Rescue, a summertime feature in which you can get recipe ideas by request for fresh produce from your CSA share or farmers' market simply by leaving a comment, telling me what produce is giving you fits. Check back on Tuesday for a list of healthy, creative recipes for that produce!

HOLLA! Time for the weekly call for produce for CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014, where you leave a comment, telling me what produce from your CSA share or that you found at the farmers' market has left you clueless, and I will rescue you with some awesome recipes on Tuesday.

Here's the recap so far:

• Week 1: Rhubarb
• Week 2: Grape Leaves and Cabbage 

Alos, don't forget that you can  consult the recipe ideas from the past 3 years of this feature on the CSA Share Ideas page in my recipe index.

So what'll it be for Week 3? Leave a comment: The Ninj wants to know!