Thoughts on a Few Things

 I've tried a few new to me things recently, so I figured I would share what my thoughts are. I always like to see reviews before I buy things, especially any specialty vegan food because it's rarely budget friendly. 

I found the Just Folds a few weeks ago on sale at Smith's and finally got around to trying one. I have seen some drool worthy breakfast sandwiches made out of these, but on this day I needed groceries so I had no greens, avocado or cheese. So, I just heated the fold up, toasted some gluten free bread and added a smear of veganaise. 

The fold has more flavor than the liquid, but it still doesn't have an eggy flavor. For me that's a positive, but I would say if you miss eggs you probably would want to add black salt. 

My big problem with Just Egg is the price. I know the price has come down since they first launched, but it's still so much higher than eggs. There's no way someone on a budget would be able to trade their eggs for Just. 

This was new at Winco, and under two dollars! Sadly, it had very little blood orange flavor. It wasn't bad, just not great either. 

I found this at a little farm stand somewhere in Utah or Colorado. It's very spicy, with a little sweetness and not too vinegary. I wish I would have gotten two bottles!

I found these at Trader Joe's. They're like a spicy Vegan Rob's puff. They are very spicy, so if you have a low spice tolerance, these aren't for you. But if you like it, I highly recommend!

I couldn't pass up this spicy cashew butter dressing at Trader Joe's. It's a little spicy from the red chili peppers, but it's also zippy from the ginger and I can definitely taste the lime. It's pretty great on salads, and I bet it would be great on a cold noodle salad. 

I got this to use as a creamer for tea and coffee, but I did taste it alone first and zoinks this is pretty great! The milk, or "beverage" is nice and thick, similar to Oatly and the maple flavor is perfect. Sweet, not too sweet. I think this would probably be pretty incredible in oatmeal!

Not food of course, but I always love beautiful deep blue skies and changing leaves!

Vegan Trader Joe's Time!

 I think 2020 is getting to us all, and yesterday I learned how much it has gotten to me. I made a rookie mistake that I haven't made in YEARS! I went to Trader Joe's on a Saturday!! Mid-morning even! It was such a madhouse, even though they still limit how many people can enter at a time! I almost abandoned my cart halfway through!

I always love the fall themed Trader Joe's hauls with all the new fall foods, pumpkin everything! For my trip, because the store was so insane I couldn't really spend the time perusing for the new fun stuff. So this is a very basic haul as per usual for me! Although I did still find a few new to me things. 

Maple oat beverage, vanilla almond creamer, green tea, bananas, sweet potato, peanut butter, romaine,fruit snacks, jalapeno rice corn puffs, black beans,tofu,garbanzo beans, coconut milk, red and yellow onion

Fizzy water, cuties, carrots, Yukon gold potatoes, frozen falafel, blueberries,coconut cream, chocolate, butter lettuce, lemons,water kefir and booch, ginger,spicy cashew salad dressing, frozen mango, shredded carrots, tiny avocados

I had to get more of the almond milk chocolate, it's so good! And the cashier and person bagging my stuff both agreed the milk chocolate is amazing, and the cashier assured me the chocolate with plantain is top notch, and adds the sweetness that I always think dark chocolate needs!

Also, for anyone out there who's gluten free, their frozen falafel is now gluten free. It must have changed sometime in the last few years, because I do remember the old formula having wheat. I had a couple of these last night in my salad, and they're as tasty as I remember!! Highly recommend, and will buy again!

Something Old, Something New

 You guys know I have a love hate, mostly hate relationship with all things gluten free. Every once in awhile I come across an item that surprises me, but those are rare beautiful moments. I had one of those moments Saturday during my road trip. 

These remind me of Ritz crackers, which I used to love. They're a little less flaky of course, but still pretty close. I had these with the Hope foods garlic dip, and they held up nicely with dip.

Smith's has had their water kefir on sale for a few weeks now, and I've tried all three flavors, mango orange, ginger pear and now lemon lime. The mango orange is my favorite, but this is a very close second. Really nice lemon lime flavor. I love water kefir, I need to learn how to make my own!

I had some garlic dip left, so I had some Yukon and purple sweet potato wedges with the dip and a little BBQ. So tasty!

I found this the other day and had to get it. I love Elmhurst cashew milk, and I love Chai spice so come on! It's really nice, I tried it this morning in some cinnamon coffee. 

I ran to Natural Grocers the other day looking for soy curls, and left with these! Sadly, they were all out of soy curls, but since I LOVE Hodo Soy tofu, I grabbed these veggie burgers. They're basically a patty version of their tofu, seasoned with some onion, carrot, and mushrooms. Ten out of ten!

Served Carl's Jr. style in an iceberg "bun" with veganaise, red onion, avocado and yellow mustard. These are probably my favorite veggie burger. Great texture, not too oily, and not trying to be anything other than delicious!

Through a Sea of Haze

 Yesterday I went on a road trip hoping to see some beautiful fall foliage. Unfortunately, the air quality yesterday was the worst I've seen it since living in Utah, and there just aren't a ton of trees in Utah. I remember growing up in the Midwest fall leaves were a thing to behold.

As you can see it was haze as far as they eye can see. You could barely even see the mountains!

I still had a blast, I always love a good road trip. Back when I drove and owned a car, I used to take random road trips by myself all the time. Not having a destination or plan was the best part of it!

I found this at a random grocery store somewhere in the sticks of Utah. This stuff is AMAZING! Picture french onion dip, but with garlic! The ingredients are pretty basic, so I think I want to try and recreate this on my own!

Not trying to promote Shell in any way, but I loved seeing this old time-y truck. I thought it was a caboose or train, but now looking at the picture I see it's a truck. 

Stopped at a little roadside farm stand on the way home. Look at those beautiful apples! I'm also excited to try the hot sauce, which is homemade and I'm sure going to be a million times better than any hot sauce I've had! And the pickles are AMAZING!!!

I also found these and decided to give them a try. I've seen a lot of vegans recommend these, and I gotta say??? At first crunch they have a decent flavor, but the problem is as you chew the texture is so dry and chalky, it kind of cancels out the flavor. These are a horrible representation of vegan snacks. I definitely do not recommend these. If I'm paleo and snacks are like this, I'll just skip snacks!

I haven't had delivery pizza in a million years. Definitely not since moving to SLC, and going gluten free. You guys know I don't eat out often for several reasons, and the problem with gluten free pizza is that the crust is rarely vegan. They really like to use eggs and honey in gluten free baked goods. But I found a place that not only had vegan gluten free crust, but vegan cheese! I got the extreme veggie with artichoke hearts, spinach, red onion, tomatoes and garlic. And vegan cheese of course! Ten out of ten for the pizza, three out of ten for the crust, which is just the reality of gluten free anything. The free stands for free of all that's good. 

Soup's On!

 

There are so many kinds of tofu at the Asian market, and this is one of my favorites. It's sold in a little specialty freezer marked vegan, with a ton of vegan meats. Like almost anything, I've seen spareribs, chicken drumsticks, and all kinds of seafood. 

But you know me, I stick with what I love, and I love tofu! This tofu has tiny little pieces of veggies like sweet corn, peas and carrot. It has a great texture, and has nice vegetable-y flavor. I've always thought it would be a great stand in for chicken in some kind of chicken soup. 

I've been staring at this risoni in my pantry wondering what to do with it. I'm definitely not a fan of this clunky "grain alternative" as a stand it for delicious fluffy rice. But, I thought it might work in a soup, like a chicken and rice or barley type of soup.

It gave me an excuse to use this seasoning which got shoved all the way back in the pit of my spices. 

A little onion, celery and carrot along with this seasoning and this soup tasted like a hug after a day of sledding or something cozy like that. 

Hello Again!

 

I've seen these at a few stores, and I've heard good things, but they're usually pretty pricey, especially for a snack. But, the WooHoo sale is my love language so I finally got to try them! They're okay, but honestly given that it's a dill pickled flavored kraut chip, I expected a bigger pickle punch. They're pretty mild, I think you get a better pickle punch from the Lay's dill pickle chips. I'm glad I got to try them, but all in all my rating is meh.

While at Smith's scouring for WooHoo sales, I stumbled across this Organicville dairy free ranch that is vegan. I also found the Just Egg folded! Honestly, I don't miss eggs, I never loved them as a pregan, but I had to try these for the novelty of it all! It's exciting to see these at a regular old grocery, not a specialty shop.

I found these a few weeks ago on sale, and I love hodo soy, Their curry tofu nuggets are my all time fave. Their tofu has the best texture of any tofu EVER!

I made a green chili cashew sauce, tossed that with some Banza chickpea pasta and then added the tofu. Topped with cholula of course! I also had a salad and tried the ranch, it is not what I would call ranch, and I definitely wouldn't use it as a dipping ranch. It's more like a creamy lemon-y herb dressing. 

Look at this big long guy getting a tan! He's doing so well, and I'm so happy watching him love life on the inside!

Pumpkin Spice and Tom Yum Soup

 

This was on sale at Whole Foods, so I decided to try it. It's really nice. Because it's unsweetened, the pumpkin spice flavor really shines. And it's nice and thick and creamy. I love it with Chai tea and also maple flavored coffee!

If you like your coffee of tea to have a little extra flavor but not so much sugar, I noticed Nut Pods have several flavors and all are vegan and all are unsweetened!

I remember the first time I tried Tom Yum soup at some tiny little restaurant in Seattle. It was such a delicious explosion of flavors I was hooked. I haven't had it in years, definitely since moving to Utah. I've been feeling a bit off lately, so yesterday was a great time for some soothing soup!

I wish I would have had some fresh lemongrass to add to the soup, but a nice squeeze of lime at the end really brightened everything up. This was soothing to my soul in many ways.

I also would like to thank Etta for being my background model in two of the three pictures!

All the Tofu!

 For some reason, the last few times I've gone to Whole Foods they've been out of medium, firm and extra firm tofu. They have one or two packages of silken, but I don't use silken tofu often. I'm not sure if they're having issues because of covid, or if there are just a ton of tofu loving vegans who are buying it all up. I hope it's the latter. It's okay, because it gives me an excuse to make the trek to the Asian Market. 

Spicy tofu, tofu cutlets,green onion, golden kiwi, lemons,ginger, fried tofu, medium tofu, oranges, reishi coffee,Thai basil, coconut milk, mushroom seasoning,potato mochi

I was going through the frozen aisle and feeling blue because while there are so many vegan dumplings and scallion pancakes and buns and spring rolls, they all contain wheat!! Then, I came across these potato mochi! I've only ever had the sweet mochi ice cream treats, so I have no idea what to expect with these, has anyone had potato mochi?

Fall is slowly coming around, even though the temperature here has still been very summer-like, except for the three days when I had no power! Ha!

The other day I was grating some daiya farmhouse cheddar, and Bubba was so interested and definitely begging, so I decided to leave a few shreds on the plate to see if he liked it, and he does! It made me cry because it reminded me of my sweet Dylan, who this blog is named after because he did love daiya!

Whole Foods and More!

 I have a little haul to show. I was going to go to Trader Joe's, but as I've learned over time, Friday's are almost as bad as Saturday and Sunday and I just wasn't feeling up to that stress. Grocery shopping is already stressful during these times, so I try to go to places that are as mellow as possible. So far my favorite places for groceries have been Sprouts and Whole Foods. They are never that busy, and most importantly all of the staff and customers wear masks correctly. When I go to Winco or Smiths, it's shocking how many people are just brazenly walking around with their masks around their chins. 

First a few things I grabbed at Smith's. I can't resist the gluten free tortillas for two dollars! They're normally seven! They've also come out with their own line of water kefir, and it's pretty tasty. They were on sale two for four! And they had Treeline cheese on sale so I treated myself. I wish Treeline were a little cheaper because I would have it all the time! 

Vegan gummies, bath salts, garlic, Japanese sweet potato, oranges, onion, veggie burgers, vegan cheddar crackers, grape booch, pumpkin spice nut pods, fizzy water, iceberg lettuce, celery, kale, green onions, romaine, peanut butter, carrots

Sadly, the Surf Sweet gummies are not vegan. I missed gelatin in the ingredients. I know Surf sweets makes vegan gummies, I've bought them at natural grocers. Returns and exchanges are weird with covid, so I'm just going to give them to a non vegan. Le sigh.

I wasn't specifically going for any type of budget, but I spent thirty seven dollars and some change at Whole Foods. Not too bad considering I got some treats.

Since I do so much griping about all of the horrible and expensive gluten free items out there, I have to be fair and give credit where it's due. I saw someone mention how great these are, and I put them in my cart, and almost changed my mind because gluten free crackers are super hit or miss for me, and I don't always love the fake cheddar taste. But, I decided to give them a chance, and WOW, I'm so glad I did! They have a decent texture, a tad dense but not too bad, and the taste! It has like a roast-y cheddar flavor, similar to what I remember Goldfish crackers tasting like. They aren't too pricey, compared to other gluten free crackers either. They are $3.99 a box, and given the quality I say totally worth it. I highly, highly recommend these, and I definitely will be buying again!

Rest in Power RBG

 What a sad day yesterday was, We lost a wonderful, strong champion. I can't believe Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was so strong, and so tough I somehow always imagined her outliving us all! 

And the saddest thing is that we can't even process and mourn her death, because we just know the cheeto in chief is going to scramble to find the next rape-y ex frat boy to fill her seat. 

One of my favorite RBG quotes that I think of everyday, especially in terms of how I interact with non vegans. "Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you." Beautiful, amazing woman.

I have a haul and a delicious new to me vegan find, but I think I'm going to wait until maybe tomorrow. Today I want to honor RBG and figure out how we can keep fighting, and focus on voting, getting people to vote. I know voting won't solve everything, but it's going to help and it's a start.

RIP Notorious RBG.