She went there

Someone taste-tested almost the entire haul of pumpkin product at Trader Joe’s.

Read about my resistance here.

Making it work

Traveling/being on the go/dining out with friends must be navigated more conscientiously as a veghead.

But I’ve come across some nice options and accommodations during my recent hectic few weeks.

First: Safeway is actually pretty all right.

I don’t often shop at Safeway anymore except for its gas station. I feel I find more options that fit my needs at local chain markets. But maybe I haven’t looked in the right places.

Trader Joe’s needs an intervention

Anyone else get the Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer that came in the mail a week or two ago?

I get that it’s pumpkin and pumpkin spice season. I don’t have a huge [plant-based] beef with them (mmm pie), but I’m glad about the current backlash because it’s been getting out of hand. And I don’t appreciate the two loves of my life, beer and coffee, getting tainted with pumpkin spice everywhere. (The Starbucks PSL isn’t even vegan with soy and it tastes like vomit, so.)

Trader Joe’s clearly doesn’t give a shit.

No, it’s ride or die for Trader Joe’s on the pumpkin train. YOLO.

For your pleasure and horror, all of the pumpkin-related items on sale (and allegedly exist) at Trader Joe’s:

Being a broke vegan

People think being vegan is expensive. It can be, but depending on your choices, it really doesn’t have to be.

I mean, the roots of my vegan journey stem partly from a need to stretch what few dollars I had, and nixing meat, eggs and milk from the grocery list helped (took awhile for me to forgo cheese).

Last month, I moved, which was expensive, and then there was Christmas. Then my car insurance leveled a financial blow for moving. (Thanks, btw.)

So I had a few weeks during which I had to skimp a little. Sadly the credit card was used more frequently than I’d prefer.

But food was never a huge stress. I just had to know what to make with cheaper ingredients.

So lemme talk a little bit about what I do to squeak by when The Man is after my meager stack of journalist cash.

Budget Bytes chunky lentil vegetable soup. Hearty, awesome for taking lunches to work.

FatFree Vegan’s eggplant paprikash. Warm, comforting, easy.

Lazy orzo topped with Isa’s spicy slurpy sauce and HH parmesan

My veggie broth home brew. Looks like leeks and thyme made it to this mix.

This week in bullshit sources of dairy

-A tube of minced garlic (wut?)
-Mints (um?)
-Vitamin B12 supplements (whyyy)

In what zany and maddening places have you found dairy? Giving up meat is simple. But dodging dairy is a whole different challenge because it’s EVERYWHERE.

Being vegan on soft foods, and other trials

Last weekend I got my wisdom teeth pulled. Though I should have been more worried about the fact that the whole operation was done while I was awake, I was a bit stressed about what to eat.

People said yogurt and ice cream. Those are dairy products, guys.

But they certainly have their alternatives, so eating soft foods post-op served as another learning opportunity for me.

Day 1

Bloody gauzes in my mouth, I went to a Safeway to shop for mushy foods while my prescriptions for narcotics and antibiotics were being filled.

Safeway appeared to only have one type of non-dairy yogurt: So Delicious coconut milk yogurt. Two bucks a pop. Yamma hamma.

Then I got some sort of dairy-free sorbet.

Because I usually shop at hippy-dippy stores, the lack of dairy-free variety at Safeway was kind of a bummer.

So Delicious wasn’t.

It’s aptly named. It was so delicious. I was pleasantly surprised. Nice, thick texture and rich flavor. As someone who hadn’t tried dairy-free yogurt before, I thought So Delicious killed it. Can you guys cut your price in half now?

The rest of the night I ate applesauce and a couple spoonfuls of sorbet in between gauzing my bloody Dracula mouth.

Frozen vegan

It was 11 p.m., past closing time for any good take-out places, including the vegan-friendly taco and burrito place a block away from my boyfriend’s place.

But I needed food. I was so hungry and had 90 minutes left of my telecommuted work shift. Food needed to happen.

So I went to Ballard Market, a 24-hour grocery store that stocks tons of the natural and veggie-friendly products I like, not to mention its killer produce section. (They let me buy one celery stalk at a time! God knows I never use a whole bunch of celery!)

For some reason, I was in the mood for some vegan trash that didn’t require prep, so I cruised the frozen aisle. After eyeing vegan pizzas and dairy-free mac and cheeses, I settled on an intriguing option: Sukhi’s Indian-style vegan chili chicken.

I mean, it came with its own naan.

Bear with me, the house was dim, making for extra-crappy phone photos.

Veganism for dummies: Read the label

A quick shopping trip for some kind of energy bar before hitting the gym yesterday offered an important reminder.

I swung by Safeway to pick up a Clif bar or two before working out because I hadn’t eaten anything at all that day and drank a cup of coffee, which sometimes gives me the jitters if I don’t send some food down there to soak some of it up.

I love Clif bars. They’re delicious and reliably vegan.*

But I couldn’t find them at the Safeway I went to. They shouldn’t be that hard to find, but every Safeway seems to be set up differently and I haven’t figured this one out yet. Wanting to just get to the gym before starting the night shift at work, I came upon a section of “natural” bars. It didn’t include Clif bars, but after a quick skim of the selection, I picked up a couple cranberry flax seed bars that seemed cheap and filling enough and continued on my way.

It wasn’t until I got into my car that I bothered to check the ingredients list for dairy. As is often the case, the list of contents is hidden under a flap in the packaging.