The World’s Best Vegan Products in 2011 (as judged by me)

I’ve had so much fun trying all the products available to vegans all over the world, and while I like the differences I find, I can’t seem to help but pick favourites.

These are my favourite vegan products across the countries I have visited since being vegan (Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Micronesia, USA, UK, Denmark, France, Italy, Austria, and Georgia). I have never received any free or discounted products, or any inducements to review a product from any of the suppliers mentioned below, or any others. That said, I’m totally up for free stuff if any one wants to send any my way (I suspect I don’t have the readership for that!).

Just a note: the countries referred to in parenthesis are the countries where I have seen the products. I don’t know where many of them come from, or they are manufactured in various locations.

 

Plain non-dairy milk

Winner – Edeka Natur Soy Milk (Austria, Georgia)

Runner Up – Bonsoy (Japan, Australia, world)

 

Flavoured non-dairy milk

Winner – Its a tie between Kikkoman Coffee flavoured soy milk(US and Pacific) and Edeka Vanilla flavoured soy milk (Austria and Georgia).

Kikkoman Pearl Soy Milk (Edeka not pictured)

Runner up – I love all flavoured soy milks, so everyone is a runner up.

 

Yoghurt

 Winner – Alpro Soy Yoghurt, raspberry flavour (UK).

I have no photo of the yoghurt, but here is some pudding, margarine, Sheese and vegan sausages!

Runner up – The many soy yoghurts in the USA are edible and taste somewhat like real yoghurt.

 

Nothing available in Australia, France, or Austria come anywhere near a passable yoghurt-ish favour, and most suffer horribly from an overwhelming soy-boiled-in-plastic taste (I’m looking at you, Soy King).

 

 

Vegan Cheese

Winner – Cheezly, the French version (France). Hard cheese style, soft and creamy, and tastes just fantastic.

French vegan stuff - the chese is at centre stage

Runner up – its a tie between Daiya Cheddar flavour (US) and Redwood Cheezly Mozarella (NZ, Australia). Daiya is good for the meltyness it brings, and it buttery flavour, but Redwood Cheezly continues to be my favourite for use on pizza and in canneloni, lasagne, etc.

 

An Honorable Mention must go to Sheese (UK, Australia) for having so many flavours, even though they do suffer a little from the overwhelming-soy-flavour problem that plagues so many mock dairy and mock meat endeavours.

 

 

Convenience Foods

Winner – Fry’s Beef-style strips and chicken style cutlets (UK, Australia) ties with the Valsoia vegan chicken croquettes and meat balls available in nearly every freezer section in every supermarket in Italy.

 

Runner up – Tofurky vegan pizza with Daiya Cheese (USA), and Amy’s for having such a range and ensuring some options for the gluten free peeps.

 

 

Pizza

Winner – Pizza rosso with chilli from all the take out “by the slice” places in Rome (Italy).  It is deep dish style, oily, warm and fantastic. This stuff is so good, yo don’t even miss the cheese. Not to be confused with pizza from pizzerias or restaurants, which is the thin, crusty, less flavoursome kind.

 

Runner up – Vegetarian pizza with vegan cheese from Eat Pizza, Melbourne (Australia). Their vegan lot is pretty good too. Tied for second are the frozen Tofurky pizzas with vegan cheese, available in freezer sections across the USA.

Honorable Mention – Goes to the vegan pizza at The Rusty Anchor on Pohnpei, even though we’re probably the only people who have or will ever order it.

 

 

Spreads

Winner  – Tartex, all flavours, seems to deserve its reputation and price point. I tried many other vegan spreads with similar ingredients while in the UK, France and Austria, but none of them lived up to the full flavour of Tartex.

 

Runner Up – Eggplant with Cinnamon and Walnut (badrijani da darich’inis) (Georgia) and Ajika, a local chilli paste (Georgia).

Honorable Mention – goes to coconut jam in Pohnpei.

Coconut Jam

 

 

Ice cream

Winner – Turtle Mountain Peanut Butter Zig Zag flavour. Its chocolate ice cream with peanut butter caramel fudge swirls. This stuff is incredibly addictive, and maybe the tastiest ice cream in a tub I have ever come across.

 

Runner Up – Well, I have tried vegan gelato in Italy now, and I can honestly say that the flavours to be had at Melbourne’s own Casa Del Gelato trump anything else I’ve come across in my travels. Eat up, fellow Melbournites!

 

 

 

Two Honorable Mentions – One for the vegan soft serve at Eden Bakery in Portland, Oregon, and another for Ice Kechang in Singapore. Ice Kechang isn’t ice cream as such, but it is a fantastic iced dessert for vegans on a hot day. No brand as such, its shaved ice, covered in many flavours of syrup, crushed nuts, and swimming in sweet red beans, syrup and lychees. Watch out, it is usually topped with sweet milk (condensed), so vegans need to ask for milk-free.

 

Chocolates and Sweet junk

 

Winner – Sajak’s almond and Sajak’s hazelnut filled chocolate cups (USA). These are just too good to pass up, mostly because of their lovely, creamy, praline centers.

Runner Up – Newman’s filled chocolate cups, particularly the hazelnut or peanut butter versions (USA). Also, all their vegan biscuits. Note, not everything in this brand is vegan.

 

Honorable mention goes to Justin’s Chocolate Nut Butters, which taste like a lolly, but are protein packed and come in packets which are really good if you are traveling and can’t carry bulky jars.

 

Plain Chocolate (Block form)

Winner – Organica Vegan Diets Swiss Courveture (UK) is the very best vegan chocolate block I have ever tasted. I wish very much that I had bought more of them to take with me across the globe. As it was I had one, and it disappeared in one sitting – it was that good. I have a feeling it would make the very most fabulous chocolate desserts, and I feel a little sad that I don’t have access to it in Australia. Its fair-trade, of course.

Organica Swiaa Couverture

In Australia, I continue to advocate for Plamil Milk-style Chocolate (UK, Australia), however wishing doesn’t make it as good as the Organica stuff.

 

Bathroom and Cosmetic Gear

Toothpaste – the winner here is the Red Seal Baking Soda toothpaste (NZ, Ausralia), however The Cooperative Freshmint Vegan toothpaste (UK) is a pretty close second.

Deodorant – My new favourite deodorant in the whole world is Tom’s Of Maine solid deodorant (USA). No stains on shirts, it seems to work for long periods, and it smells good.

Face Wash – I have itchy skin most of the time and am allergic to soap and just about every scent ever put in a cream, but I love the Lavera cream face wash (rose) I got in France. In Australia, Nature’s Organics gets the top points for being vegan, soap free and cheap.

Sunscreen – Natio will always win this one for me. Aussie, vegan, no animal testing, and available everywhere in Aus. The two bottles we took with us still haven’t run out.

 

So What have I missed? Leave your favourite vegan products for 2011 in the comments.

Vegan things you can buy in Georgia

While it is true that no Georgian I have met so far has managed to hide the confusion and shock they feel when I say I don’t eat meat OR cheese, there is actually quite a lot of vegan fare available in Tbilisi without any substitutions or changes required.

In fact, a lot of the food available in the supermarket here is so good, its hard to be bothered cooking. Its also very easy to find this food, particularly as my local supermarket labels everything in the deli section in Georgian and English, and I have made myself a handy cheat-sheet for reading the Georgian words for milk, dairy, eggs, advent, lent and fasting (some Georgians give up milk and meat for lent and advent, so there are vego versions of the classics available sometimes).

Here are a few of the delights we’ve been tasting in Georgia so far:

Roasted capsicum wth walnut paste

Eggplants stuffed with walnut paste

Walnut Paste with Beet Leave (left) and Eggplant with Cinnamon (right)

Be aware, there are many kinds of walnut paste dishes. They all taste fabulous, but I don’t recommend the one with the beet leaves – its tastes good, but looks like cat vomit, and feels how I imagine cat vomit would feel, because of the hard, stringy leaves.

Every kind of jam and preserve imaginable. These ones are chilli (wth fenugreek and dill, of course), pomegranat and plum (all local products)

Lobiani, a bean pie, or "Lenten" pie

Bean pie filling - savoury, not sweet

Be careful when buying the bean pies – some of them may have an egg wash. This one doesn’t.

Shotis Puri, a Georgian bread

Fastng Khinkali (this one is mushroom, though the potato one tastes better)

What lunch looks like for vegans in Tbilisi - bread, spreads, jam, tea and varenki (Russian dumplings)

Also, sometimes like this- salad, sauted cabbage, seeds, khinkali, tea and Georgian pear lemonade

Also available at Goodwill (supermarket closest to my place) is pre-made fried potatoes with mushroom, roasted vegetable medley, rice dishes, breads, pastries, dips, salads, red beans, red bean salad, red bean soup, Georgian corn cakes, vegetarian spring rolls-looking things, soy milk, vegan lard, and even vegan (though not fair trade) chocolate.

The far more numerous supermarket chain, Populi, also has bread, frozen vegan khinkali, and a some of the walnut and eggplant dishes, though they don’t have an ingredient list. There are also bakeries selling warm, local bread (vegan!) everywhere, numerous popcorn and doughnut vendors (I’ve been told the doughnuts are ok for fasting, so no animal fat or milk, but they may have egg) and plenty of fruit, veg and all the walnuts you can eat (these guys have a for serious obsession with walnuts).

So, you see its a total walk in the park being vegan in Tbilisi, regardless of the incomprehension of the locals.

Probably the Best Vegan Mexican Food in West Texas

Recently, as a part of the enormous around the world trip of enormity, I found myself in Texas, looking for a meal.

Actually, to be fair, I wasn’t looking for a meal, I was looking for a wallet, and Mr had taken me on a little detour from our destination (Odessa) to a company he loves called SpecOps in Monahans, Texas.

SpecOps make wallets, belts, buckles, bags and other stuff. Their stuff is made in the USA and is leather-free. Vegan by accident is vegan enough for me.

They only had the wallet I wanted in a fetching camouflage, so I opted out, but we did get talking to the people there about football, and if there were any Friday night football games on in the vicinity. One thing lead to another, and we were invited out to dinner at a local restaurant.

As any vegan knows, being invited to dinner is a delicate affair. You want to accept hospitality, but you know that inevitably at some point you ill have to either refuse or make things difficult, especially if you are going to a restaurant in Texas.

We said we’d love to go, but that it could be tricky because we don’t eat meat/eggs/dairy, but our hosts assured us it would be fine. So off we went, not sure what we would find.

Turns out the place is part owned by the people at SpecOps. The restaurant had been operating in town for decades, but the owner was ill, and his daughter, who had been managing the restaurant, was spending more time taking care of him, so it had recently closed.

After is closed, a group of people got together and formed a committee to start it back up, concerned for the family and for the community. They put in the money and work needed to re-open it, and the place was open again, and full of customers. In fact, when we got there at 5.30pm it was already filling up – our host said that people come early, because they want to get in and its always busy.

The place, called Fermin’s, has an extensive menu of Mexican and Tex-mex food including burritos, enchiladas, tacos, nachos, chips, beans, rice etc. The beans and rice are made without meat, animal fat or animal stock, the chips and dips are made on premises, and staff were happy to mix and match for us, so there were a lot of vegan options to choose from. The staff were also very helpful in checking out our concerns with the kitchen, and making suggestions. Not a turned up nose, sideways glance or grumble about picky eaters in sight. Melbourne eateries could learn a thing or two about how to treat people from these guys.

In the end we got chips with salsa and guacamole, a bean burrito, a rice burrito, fries and about 6 liters of iced tea (glasses are just bigger in America).

The food was really good, and quite cheap (although we got it for free, thanks to some very friendly texans – Thanks guys!). The burritos were smaller than they are in Oz, but most people were ordering burritos plus other food, and they were certainly priced to let you do that – we didn’t only because we weren’t that hungry, it being 5.30. We were also given some extra chips to take on the road, which were really good with salsa and hommus the next day. The fries were fantastic, and I really liked the flavour of the rice.

If I ever get there again, I will also try the sweet tortilla dessert (of course I’ve forgotten what it is called!), which they said could be made with sugar instead of honey for us vegan folk.

I didn’t get any photos, so you’ll just have to take my word for it, but if you ever get yourself to west Texas, its worth the detour to Monahans to get some tasty, healthy, vegan food in a friendly, community-driven atmosphere.

Fermin’s is located at 400 N Main Road, Monhanans, Texas. Check them out on facebook, too!

Thanks to Bryan, and everyone else at Fermin’s and SpecOps, we wish you the best.

Vegan in a Crisis

I’m in New York, and as I type the entire population is out buying all the water, chips and batteries in the few stores that are still open. Actually, they’d better hurry up because all the transportation will be shut down in 30 minutes.

They’re all preparing for Hurricane Irene, which is supposed to hit New York in about 12 hours.

Yup, that's a storm the size of Eurpoe

As I said everyone else is out stocking up on canned meat, tuna, eggs (I don’t know how they intend to cook them, but I really have seen long lines of people buying eggs this morning), cheese or sour cream or meat flavoured chips, cream-filled and buttery pastries, biscuits and other snacks. Not really vegan-friendly.

So, what does a vegan stock up on when the apocalypse is pending?

Here’s my shopping list designed to cover 3.5 days worth of Keira-and-Mr caloric needs, plus extra for people we may meet in the stairwell/safe haven:

• 3 blocks of dark chocolate
• too many Luna Bars
• 2 packs trail mix
• 6 bananas
• 1 packet of Newton’s Fig Newtons
• 1 can Amy’s vegan chilli
• 1 jar of chunky peanut butter
• 1 pack of vegan granola
• 2 litres of soy milk
• 1.5 litres of grape juice (only one that still had any vit C in it)
• 1/2 a packet of saltines (okay, these we already had)
• 1 loaf of bread
• some oats
• 1 thing of hummus
• 2 soy yoghurts
• sugar
• 3 drink bottles and a bath tub full of water (plus bottles the AirBnB hosts have)
• and a pack of vegan dumplings that I intend to eat before the power goes out.
  

  My loot

Not the most filling food, not the healthiest food, but it will do. I would have liked more fruit, but everyone was out, and we have no space for veg. We have much more than enough calorie-wise, but I wonder if we’ll still get hungry due to lack of volume. Time will tell.

Hopefully, the power wont go out, the water will keep working, and this will all just be a thought experiment. If not, well, we’ll see.

So, over to you: Have you ever been through a crisis that caused you to stock up? Do you keep a stockpile at home just in case? Have you ever caught yourself day dreaming about what would be in your dream-vegan-stockpile? What would you stash in case of emergency?

 

 

 

 

Vegan Las Vegas (hard work)

Vegas. We had to do it, even if it is just lights, strippers and extra charges.

When I first realised we were heading to Vegas, I used the power of the google to see what vegan fare might be around. I was happy to see there was one blog about vegan options and even a casino which promised to have edible vegan options at every meal, at every restaurant.

What the google failed to mention was that without a car access to anything vegan was nearly impossible, and that the vegan options at the Wynne started at the $28 per person price point (including tax and tip) and that was for breakfast at the cheapest place, the buffet. Lunch was more like $35 per person, and dinner was unmentionably expensive.

So, trying to save dough, as doing so keeps us out of jobs for as long as possible, we went in search of other stuff.

Only three places really stood out in the end, so here they are in order of least to most.

The Buffet at the Flamingo Casino, where we stayed, actually had a couple of vegan options. I went once, for lunch, and I could make up a big meal out of the salad bar, make-your-own nachos and some steamed veg. Not the most exciting or protein-filled meal, but doable in a pinch. They also had a lot of fruit for dessert.

While the buffet was okay, I should point out that the casino gave us kind of a crappy stay. The room had someone guy’s stuff in it when we got there, it advertised as having a gym when actually the gym was privately run and stupidly costly, various things were broken or not as advertised, they wanted $14 per day for internet, and they were horrendously understaffed. Staff were nice but often seemed harried and tired, so I blame the management for being cheap and not employing enough of them.

Very pretty at night (from the outside, anyway)

Tamba Indian Restaurant is located on the strip, in the Hawaiin centre, near the Hard Rock Cafe. The website is here, but I warn you it is very Flashy and blasts loud music, so don’t click if that will disturb your chi (I nearly dropped my laptop when I clicked).

We went to Tamba twice, once for the lunch buffet, and once for dinner.

The dinner was fantastic, with the best chann masala I’ve ever had, and really fresh roti. The buffet was also good, with more than half of the options being vegetarian, and most of those vegan. The staff were friendly and understood what veganism is, which always makes things easier.

I didn’t get a photo, but trust me, it was good food and not too costly for the strip, so if you’re Vegas bound you should give it a try.

 

Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant was our favourite place in Vegas. Located just off the strip, at the Circus Circus end, it was very quiet and felt much further away from the hustle and lights than it really is.

You have the choice of ordering the vegetable combo or to pick your own dishes, or a mixture of both. We got the vegetable combo and shiro both times, and it was too much food for us each time. We did try to ask for less the second time, but it came out even bigger.

Bad photo of great food at Meskerem

All the dishes are served on injera, one of my very favourite foods. Everything was fantastic here – deep-flavoured shiro, spicy lentils, sour aletcha, and all around wonderfulness.

I can’t recommend this place enough. It was quiet in a way that makes me worry for its future, so if you’re in the area get over there and support a veg-friendly business!

Now to leave with you with a few photos, just ‘cos I can.

The real reason for going to Vegas: proximity to this!

The Grand Canyon - worth the Vegas food.

USA So far – Oahu and Los Angeles

We have been out of Micronesia and in the USA now for about two and a half weeks. We have being doing a lot of on-the-go eating, most of which has been pretty lackluster, but we’ve also had some great meals at the many many many veg eateries around. Apologies for the lack of photos – at first I kept forgetting to keep it with me.

 

Oahu, Hawaii

We spent just two nights in Waikiki, so didn’t get to try out everything available, but we did have some great food.

We had dinner on the first night at Simple Joy, a local all vegan restaurant. We felt like we had just wandered out of the desert and into a huge, lush oasis when we saw the menu – it seemed like forever since we had vegan cheese or mock meat of any kind, or even tempeh. We ate their quesadillas as a starter, which were perfectly warm, melty, and so wonderfully cheesy that I may actually have shed a tear. Even Mr got excited about them and said something along the lines of, “You should remember to mention them on the blog-thing”.

For mains I ordered the lemongrass tofu and Mr had the sizzling pancake. The tofu was fantastic, but I wasn’t so sold on the pancake. It tasted good, but I didn’t like the texture much- it felt too gooey to me. Mr loved it though. All in all it was a very nice welcome-back-to-the-land-of-good-vegan-restaurants meal.

The second night in Waikiki we decided to try out Loving Hut. The service was good, if a little overwhelmingly helpful (something I’ve come to expect in the US), the menu had a good range of healthy and not-so-healthy options, and the food was quite cheap.  Unfortunately, by time of writing, we have been to so many Loving Huts that I can’t remember what we ate there, except that we got the pot stickers, which were a little bland.

Our next two nights in Hawaii were spent on the North Shore of Oahu, cooking for ourselves in a backpackers, so no reviews except to state that supermarkets have such a good range of vegan stuff here in the USA. Melbourne is well served by the Radical Grocery, of course, but my former non-city dwelling self in very jealous of American vegans. All supermarkets should have peanut butter zig-zag chocolate fudge vegan ice-cream (to eat on the beach).

Backpacker's meal

The beach on which you can eat peanut-butter fudge ice cream

 

Los Angeles

To say that we were tired when we got to LA would be a serious understatement. After a few big weeks before we left Pohnpei, and a hectic few days in Hawaii, we just about slept the whole time we were there. Don-t worry, we’re going back in a few weeks, so we’ll see things then.

We did do a little eating out though, with our friend Mike, who kindly put up with us staying with him.

First, we went to Scoops, the famed non/vegan ice creamery. There were four vegan flavours when we went and, of course, we got all four between us. They were Almond and amaretto (fabulous), Oreo peanut butter (good), Oreo and vanilla (ok), and melon and pistachio (clear favourite).

On another night we went to a vegetarian restaurant in Silver Lake called Elf. It was supposed to be very very good, and we heard it talked up by a lot of vegetarians before we went, so we were excited. It was fancy, and had prices to match (though still reasonable in comparison to Australia). We got a starter of vegan fondue to share. It was really creamy, deep-flavoured and everyone loved it.

The mains were a little less inspiring. The non-vegan mains sounded and smelled divine- pasta bakes, and many cheesy offerings. The vegan mains sounded good, but we were a little underwhelmed by the results. I ordered a main of risotto, which was to come with chillies and a mole sauce. It was ok, but not great. Mr ordered a vegetable tagine with summer squash, which came out as a huge serving, but wasn’t very flavourful at all. In all the atmosphere was great, the service was good, the fondue was fantastic, but the mains seemed a lot like they were made by a vegetarian convinced that living without cheese must be horrible, and vegan food can’t be tasty.

Raw ice cream (no honey)

Last stop of note in LA was Kind Kreme Ice Cream, a raw vegan* ice cream spot. I’ll start by saying the ice cream was really good. However we were surprised to see that they were selling honey, and had honey in some of their flavours. When I asked the woman behind the counter which ones were honey free, she went into a diatribe about how the honey was ethically farmed by her father and cell phones kill bees, so its totally fine and vegan to use honey.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t care a lick what you choose to eat or not eat, or sell or not sell. I just mind when people try to redefine vegan as being whatever they feel is ethical, as opposed to what it is – no consumption of animal products. None. I’m happy to hear discussion about whether honey is ethical, and I’m glad to hear she has thought about the bees involved in her products, but it still isn’t vegan. Free range eggs aren’t vegan, freely given milk isn’t vegan, bone char from cows who died naturally isn’t vegan, and honey from bees, no matter how happy they are, isn’t vegan. Just because you consider yourself vegan, but like something non-vegan, doesn’t mean that product becomes vegan.

Phew. Glad that rant is over, aren’t you?

Stay tuned for an update about the totally wonderful vegan wonderland that is San Francisco and the Bay Area.

 

 

Soursop Sorbet

I had never even heard of soursop before coming here. Or, I had, but I thought it was some sort of British slang for a craky old man or similar, like “Mr Crankpanterson is an old soursop”.

Turns out, soursop is a fruit. A tasty, sour, creamy fruit, that looks like this:

Soursop, image borrowed from http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/221/

I first encountered it on a very hot afternoon at a restaurant here called the Tattooed Irishman, but more commonly referred to as “The Village” after the hotel it is attached to.

It was in the form of sorbet, and it was one of the strangest things I have ever tasted; very sour, sweet, and with an odd after taste that reminded me of handcream. Mr doesn’t taste the handcream, and a friend here didn’t think  it had an odd taste until after I suggested it.I’ve even read conjecture that it tastes like onions, but I didn’t get that. So, if you’ve ever tried soursop, please leave a comment on what you think it tastes like.

(Oh, by the way, yes I did just say there was vegan sorbet available in Pohnpei, FSM. Hell yeah!).

I have since been eyeing the big, spiky, green fruit off at the markets, and bought one with the help of a very friendly staff member, who picked a good one for me. Unfortunately I opened it too soon and it was hard as rock, and then I left it for a little while and it went off while I was trying to figure out if it was ripe yet (things ripen so quickly here, that you never buy anything already ripe).

So, a few weeks later, I tried again, this time with more success. When I cut into it it was the right consistency, but it was very, very sour.

So, I added some sugar, mashed, stuck it in the freezer and voila! we have been enjoying soursop sorbet ever since. It is very easy, but I’ll put the recipe in anyway.

Soursop Sorbet

Vegan Soursop Sorbet

• 1 ripe soursop
• 1/2 cup white sugar (or more/less depending on sweetness of fruit)
• 1/2 cup water

1. Chop the soursop, and remove peel and all seeds. Be alert, as it is a sneaky fruit with hidden seeds as well as the obvious ones. I suggest squishing pieces in your fingers, as this make the seeds pop out. Set aside.
2. In a small saucepan add water and sugar and stir over medium heat until dissolved. (it doesn’t need to boil). Set aside to cool.
3. Add soursop and sugar water to a blender (or mixing bowl with stick-blender) and blend until well combined.
4. Freeze in whatever container is handy. Mush with a fork every 2 hours or so.
5. When ready to eat, set the sorbet on the bench for about 5 minutes to soften, then serve. (it may take longer in melbourne and other cold climates).

Have Trangia, will travel

Wow, long time no update.

Well, I back and well and truly settled in at home again now, and starting to work on the projects for this year – namely working on the Friendly Chocolate Cookbook, which has found a publisher in Aduki, helping the Greens for the by-election in Broadmeadows (because Brumby is a sore loser and has decided to take back his promise to the people of Broady and waste some public money), and getting us ready to ship out in March. Whew!

I’ll get back to scheduled programming soon, but first I wanted to do a bit of a vegan camping round up. So, here we go…

Our Vegan Camping Menu

I love camping, but I really, really don’t love the bought baked beans and tinned spaghetti that tend to go with it. So, I improvised.

To do it well, there are two things to remember. 1) buy vegies and protein as you go if possible, 2) pack really well.

Mr has always been the prepared sort, and has a huge camping box with the Trangia, spoons, plates, etc. I have added to it and always pack sauces, a few herbs, stock powder, cooking oil, some olives, tomato sauce, mustard, margarine (it wasn’t too hot), sugar, long life milk, cereal, chocolate, rice, tinned beans, tinned tomatoes, and anything else that will fit.

Here’s what we had on our trip:

Sausages on the Trangia!

We had sausages with lettuce from Nanna’s garden (Mr.’s) and delicious fairtrade sauces we got for Christmas.

Rice and beans, gourmet style

Rice and beans get an overhaul. Yum! That’s quick brown rice with vegies and herbs, and creamy beans with olives and tomatoes.

Sago plum pudding

Fruit Cake

It doesn’t look great here, but Mr.’s Nanna gave us a whole pudding and a fruit cake to take with us on our journey – they made excellent breaky, dessert ad snacks, and kept us happily full for most of a week.

We also had tomato rice, sauted mushrooms, and Morrocan flavoured black beans, which I didn’t get a photo of.

Tomato Rice

This stuff is vegan, available in supermarkets, and is a good way to speed up the cooking process if you don’t want to spend 45 minutes at the BBQ table.

A Trangia is a brand of camping stove, which works on metho:

The Trangia

The very best thing about camping cooking? The view!

A beach in Merimbula

 

 

Hot Dogs and accidental vegan ingredients

The second thing I ever gave up when I gave up meat (the first time) was sausages. The first was meat pies. Its pretty easy to do, because while they are both very tasty, they’re also pretty darn gross. Since discovering vegan meat substitutes, sausages have been the second hardest thing to take on again, after pies.

Due to my unsubstantiated fear of meat-like vegan products I had not, until now, tried the Sanitarium Hot Dogs. I have gotten used the other sausages, but was not yet ready to embrace the weird red colour, and frankfurter flavour I remember from my childhood.

Well that ends now, because its time for vegan hot dogs. We made them new-york style, with white buns, onion sauce, tomato relish and mustard (with some extra tomato sauce thrown in for good measure.  They were stupidly delicious, felt junky, satisfying, and like they would indeed be the perfect food for taking in a live sportsball game. (sorry meat-pie, I’m just not that into you).

I didn’t get photos, because they were gone to quick! It was also the night of the desexing for mumma cat Frances, and she had been meowing like a crazy thing for about 4 hours by the time we came to eat, hopped up on whatever they give cats, so my mind was a little scattered.

I did, however get a few pics of my latest accidentally vegan find- white hot dog buns, from Coles.

I found them in my search for appropriate hot-dog-holding bread. I picked the packet up with trepidation in the supermarket, expecting to find a list of non-vegan numbers staring back at me from the ingredients list. Instead  found this:

Derived from vegetable sources yay!

These were fluffy, white, and practically tasteless (I’d forgotten that about white bread, its been so long). They were the perfect hot dog receptacle.

I don’t usually like big brands, especially those belonging to large supermarkets, evil price-gouging, farmer-f$$king, environment-destroying, small-business stomping creatures that they can be, but I would suggest using these if you are ever in need of hot dogs, and unable to get to a vegan bakery.

Thanks for sticking with me thus far. Next up, pizza!