Monthly Archives: May 2015

My favorite local vegan products at Wheatsville co-op

I’m so excited for Vida Vegan Conference this weekend! I stopped at Wheatsville food co-op to show you all some of my favorite local vegan products.

Of course we have tons of local produce from central Texas and if you are in town right now peaches from Fredricksburg are available! We wait for these babies all year.

Next to all the tofu, seitan, and plant meats from far and wide you will find locally made tempeh from the Hearty Vegan in the refrigerator section.

Celeste’s Best Cookie dough is in the fridge too. You can bake it in the oven or even eat it with a spoon since its vegan!

The best hummus I’ve ever had is in the fridge too. Grandma’s hummus should not be missed!

Over in the freezer section they have both of our local vegan ice cream options. Nadamoo is coconut based & it’s creamy and delicious. The mint chocolate chip is my favorite.

Sweet Ritual has different bases depending on the flavors they carry 8 different ones. Cashew is the base for strawberry, vanilla, & Cubano coffee.

Coconut is in the mint chip, Sweetsville, salted caramel, toasted coconut

And the Peanut Butter Chocolate has a peanut butter base. And it’s freaking delicious.

The “Sweetsville” flavor is my favorite though. It’s a vanilla malt with chunks of cookie dough from Celeste’s best!

Both ice cream companies recently started selling ice cream sandwiches too. And both teamed up with local vegan bakeries to do it!!! Sweet Ritual has a bunch of flavors & a cookie made from Capital City Bakery. Wheatsville also carries a gluten free cookie ice cream sandwich made with cookies from Better Bites Bakery. 

Nadamoo has cookies from Skull & Cakebones which also has a bunch of baked goods on sale at Wheatsville too.

These days we have tons of local beers and most of them are vegan. Wheatsville carries a good variety including Austin Beerworks Pearl Snap.

If beer isn’t your brew try Kosmic Kombucha! It is the best kombucha I’ve ever had!

Most days the hot bar has vegan Mac & cheese. I like to pretend it’s healthy since it has broccoli in it.

But wheatsville’s deli is most famous for its popcorn tofu.

I can pretty much guarantee you’ll go nuts over it. I think it’s the nooch batter. You can also get the popcorn tofu at the deli in a po’boy or you can by large quantities in the deli case. Oh and try the buffalo popcorn tofu too, it’s just as good, you might even like it better. There is even a vegan blue cheese sauce to go with it.

Have fun!

AUSTIN- Make plans to come to the first ever Vegan Bazaar Friday May 29

The last time I went to the Marchesa Hall it was to see performing cats.

I even saw a cat play the piano.

The Vegan Bazaar next weekend is going to be EVEN BETTER THAN THAT.

First of all, there are going to be tons of vegan vendors from all over the country. If you’ve been vegan for a long time and you haven’t tried any of the new products out this shit is going to blow your mind. And OH YEAH if you are a vegan hater or one of those people who say “I could never go vegan because the cheese is so gross” you are going to try some of the new fermented cashew or macadamia cheeses and you’ll probably just go vegan on the spot. The world has changed! All of our favorite local companies will be there too with the usual vegan doughnuts, cupcakes, and ice cream that Austin is so famous for. They are also going to have some of our most delicious food trucks representing including Cool Beans, Vegan Nom, Sadie B Foods, and Arlo’s which will all have vegan tacos if you are, like me, on a taco cleanse (it’s a way of life) but they’ll have other stuff too for all the non taco loving weirdos out there. And there is even going to be an Earth Balance Photobooth! Have you tried their freaking puffs? You will get too.

You can make a whole day of the event because they are going to have speakers and demos too. I am really excited that Gene Baur of Farm Sanctuary is coming to give the opening talk, if you haven’t seen him on the Daily Show watch it now!  And Terry Hope Romero who wrote two of my all time favorite cookbooks the Veganomicon and Viva Vegan (the best vegan Latin cookbook out there) is going to be here too!

And there will be cooking demos! Chocolate Expert Fran Costigan is going to demo vegan desserts! I went one of her workshops at the last Vida Vegan con and I learned so much. Bianca Phillips aka Vegan Crunk is going to demo DIY Kombucha + Homebrewing!

And there will be panels! My friend Joanna Vaught will be moderating the vegan family and parenting panel with Monique Koch, Sayward Rebhal, Brian “Sexy Vegan” Patton.

And your’s truly will be moderating the How We Made Austin Awesome vegan community panel. We are going to have Kristen Davenport owner of Capital City Bakery, Jessica Morris co-owner of Rabbit Food Grocery, and Chris Rios owner of  The Vegan Nom. Molly Frisinger is also going to be there to talk about  how Texas VegFest came to be. We are going to discuss how our community got together and how you can participate here in Austin or how you can make your own town’s vegan activism just as fun as ours! Of course this will include the importance of cupcakes, tacos, and all the other parts of untraditional vegan activism that don’t leave people feeling hopeless about the world we live in. FAIR WARNING: Kristen and I sometime can get into arguments so this panel could turn into a Jerry Springer style melee with chairs flying and secret baby daddies showing up. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN.

It’s the first ever VVC sponsored even that’s open to the public and I’ve even got a discount code ” weheartaustin ” so go to Evenbrite. Buy some tickets. Have the best day ever. There may even be a pig there. It’s going to be so fun.