TGIF! The sun is shining and I’m trying to figure out what to cook this morning (thinking of making socca for the first time) and how to work out later (run, walk, road cycling, hmmm). Decisions, decisions!
I wanted to thank you all so much for your warm response to the news of my online column on LoHud.com! I am excited to show my local community how fun, fabulous and delicious plant-based eating is! Speaking of that, yesterday I covered the local Whole Foods “Vegan Thursday” event for a future post in my I Eat Plants column. Here is one of the recipes we sampled:
Absolutely delicious!
I loved how many people stopped by the Vegan Thursday counter for samples and to ask questions. One woman stopped and I asked her if she is vegan. Yep, she is. Turns out we “knew” each other from Twitter! I was so excited to meet Torrie and to learn that we are practically neighbors. More on Vegan Thursday in a few weeks on Small Bites.
I wondered Whole Foods after the demo without a list – always dangerous. The upside is that I had a few more places to go in the afternoon so I couldn’t buy refrigerated or frozen foods – the bank account was spared! Later I visited Stop & Shop to pick up coffee and I decided to walk around to see if I could spy new vegan items. In the produce section the Nasoya offerings have expanded to now include Nayonaise (vegan mayonnaise). Impressed! They also have Tofutti cream cheese in the dairy section as well as lots of soy yogurt, and So Delicious ice cream in the frozen section. I was really pleased to see vegan items in several sections of a “mainstream” grocer.
Between Whole Foods and Stop & Shop I picked up a few new-to-me items.
In a moment of weakness I grabbed a box of vegan Mac and Cheese at Whole Foods. I couldn’t help it. I also couldn’t resist the hemp granola bars. At Stop & Shop I spied concentrated pesto and grabbed it. I never make pesto and I always want pesto. When I was checking out the meatless section in frozen foods (sadly, most were vegetarian, not vegan- READ THE LABELS!) I saw evol wraps and bought one simply because it had the word “vegan” on it. Yes, I am that easily influenced.
I heated the evol veggie curry wrap for dinner last night.
File this under “it’s okay in a pinch.” The veggie curry wrap is not fabulous but certainly not bad; I just found it a bit bland. I added Sriracha (because everything is better with Sriracha) and that helped. I have to say the side salad I made was quite tasty: chopped romaine, diced tomato, diced mango, chopped fresh basil and finely diced onion with a dressing of lime juice, Bragg’s, and minced garlic (which I made in my OXO Salad Dressing Shaker – you have until 11:59 pm EST TONIGHT to enter to win your own shaker!)
Are you noticing more vegan items in your local grocery store?
6 thoughts on “Vegan food demo (and food finds) at the grocery store”
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JL! Your Vitamix could make pesto in .5 seconds lol..and you can freeze it- your favorite! That evol (love backwards) company emailed me once and I had to explain vegetarian/vegan to the lady :X
Hey girl! You know, sometimes we have the one thing we just don’t want to make, for me, it’s pesto! LOL And in a concentrated tube I can use it impulsively, whenever I want! Yep, the evol veggie curry is there one and only vegan item (though Palm Oil make it less vegan, though)
Definitely try making some socca! It’s super easy and it’s kind of fun to test out the different methods/thicknesses – I made it for the first time a few weeks ago and I loved it!
Scanning recipes now!
Yum, that looks tasty! We are quite lucky to have quite a few vegan friendly choices where I shop!
Nicole <3
That’s great, Nicole! It’s really nice to see more options everywhere!