Flaxseed Bread

I thought my biggest problem for finding vegan bread was that there would be dairy or eggs in it. But the REAL culprit is actually honey! Every single loaf of bread I looked at when I was at Trader Joe's (besides the Artisan Breads) had honey in it.

I was successful at Whole Foods today. I picked up a loaf of Alvarado St. Bakery brand's Essential Flax Seed Bread. It contains spouted organic whole wheat berries, water, wheat gluten, sprouted organic whole flax seeds, soy fiber, organic dates, fresh yeast, organic raisins, soy based lecithin, sea salt, and cultured wheat.

I made a sandwich with the bread, vegenaise and mustard, veggie deli slices and lettuce. The texture and taste of the bread was great, 2 thumbs up for sure!

I really like that there is flaxseed in it, here are some benefits you can gain from it:

• Omega-3 essential fatty acids, "good" fats that have been shown to have heart-healthy effects. Each tablespoon of ground flaxseed contains about 1.8 grams of plant omega-3s.
• Lignans, which have both plant estrogen and antioxidant qualities. Flaxseed contains 75- 800 times more lignans than other plant foods
• Fiber. Flaxseed contains both the soluble and insoluble types.

Ice Cream Sandwiches!

I LOVE Tofutti's Cuties! Besides having a cute name, it is totally vegan and yummy. It is also a good size, enough to satisfy your sweet tooth but not so much that you feel guilty :) The cookie part is chocolate flavored and ice cream is vanilla, but I think I saw a mint and chip version at the store today-- I will definitely have to go confirm that. For all you ice cream lovers out there, this is the vegan answer to your cravings!

The Answer to Mayo? Vegenaise

Who would have thought Vegan Mayonnaise would be AWESOME??? It is made of soy and looks, tastes, and spreads like real mayo. I love sandwiches so it's nice to find good vegan condiments to go in them!

This brand also carries a version with a boost of Omega-3 which is a nice healthy bonus!

Vegan Carrot Cake

This was the first vegan cake recipe I have tried! It's pretty easy to make and everything looked and smelled good before I popped it into the oven. Ingredients included flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, oil, sugar, maple syrup (I used agave nectar since maple syrup is tricky and can be non-vegan at times), pineapple juice, and shredded carrots.

The true test was to see how it baked and the texture and moistness of the cake.

The cake rose well and the texture was nice and moist! It is a more delicate cake and not too sweet which I prefer. I think when paired with a frosting, the cake is fine as is and does not need to be sweeter.

I made a basic "buttercream" frosting which was way too sweet for me so I have some experimenting to do in that department. I am going to try a vegan cream cheese frosting next time. I also found some vegan marshmallow creme! I am going to try to use that to make buttercream next time. Will keep you posted!

Vegan Sugar

I didn't realize sugar was not vegan until I did a little bit of research. Bone char- which is made of cow bones- is used to whiten the sugar which makes it a non-vegan friendly product.

There are certain brands of sugar that do NOT use bone char in their processing; the list can be found here: http://www.vegfamily.com/articles/sugar.htm/

Raw and turbinado sugar are vegan as well.

But leave it to Whole Foods to make my life that much easier by having Vegan Sugar as one of their products! Another plus is that it is Fair Trade Certified! I love it. Learn more about the importance of purchasing Fair Trade products here: http://www.transfairusa.org/

I used it to bake my first vegan cake- a carrot cake (which I will be posting now :)

LARA Bars

I picked up these bars at Trader Joe's in their Cliff Bar/Energy Bar section.

It is made of only fruits and nuts with no sugar added so it's healthy and can satisfy my sweet tooth.

Here's the verdict:

Apple Pie: My fave, perfect amount of sweetness and apple goodness!

Cashew Cookie: Not so sweet, pretty good, had nice chunks of cashews in it.

Peanut Butter Cookie: Not too sweet either, the only thing that throws me off is I think I want PB to either be more creamy or harder like a candy bar but it has a soft bite to it.

Cherry Pie: I will have to try this one again. The first one I had was good but a little too tart for me but I love cherries so I might just continue you getting this one.

I love it because it's in a handy dandy bar that you can stick in your purse or eat in the car on the go and make no mess :) They are a little more than a dollar and keep me satisfied if I need a little something to munch on.

R.I.P. Cheddar Cheese

I LOVE cheese. I don't even know if I can explain my love for cheese but if I could eat that stuff day and night, I would. I always wanted to go to Wisconsin and eat as much cheese as I could. Yummmmmyyy...

With that said, I think cheese will be the most difficult thing to give up, it is what made my vegetarian days so happy! October is the official month of going vegan but I got way too excited at Whole Foods when I saw the array of vegan cheeses presented in front of me.

There was almond cheese!

There was tofu cheese!

There was even rice cheese!

So I decided to try to get on the bandwagon early and chose a good looking block that looked about right and was cheddar cheese flavored. It was made out of tofu. It also said it would melt which is my favorite characteristic of cheese. I was sooooo excited about this that I went home and sliced myself a piece.

I should have realized something was off before I even popped it in my mouth because it felt rubbery and sort of wet. But down the hatch it went.

And...it was the most disgusting thing I have ever had in my life, hands down. The rubbery texture I could even get over, but it just tasted soooo not right. It was weird and had a chemical-ly taste...I don't even know how to describe it. I guess I didn't expect it to be chemically because it's all natural and what not!

I tried melting it on a tortilla chip and I got half of it to melt and gave up after awhile because it was getting so hot and nothing was happening. It was better melted but definitely still not good. Maybe if I throw a bunch of salsa on it it'll be better.

I don't want to waste it because there are starving kids and people everywhere so I will give it a second try. It's been like 2 weeks. I am still scared :( It hasn't expired yet, so maybe I will be brave this weekend and try it again.

My friend Archna said almond cheese was the best vegan cheese she has tried so I will look into that next time.

Thank you cows for making delicious cheese for me. R.I.P, oh how I will miss you.

Taking The Plunge

"Konrad Lorenz, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on animals, understood the plight of farmed chickens. He wrote that 'the worst torture to which a battery hen is exposed is the inability to retire somewhere for the laying act. For the person who knows something about animals it is truly heart-rending to watch how a chicken tried again and again to crawl beneath her fellow cage mates to search there in vain for cover.' " - Excerpt from "The Face on Your Plate" by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.

After reading that passage and bawling like a baby, I realized that I needed to take the plunge and become vegan. I have been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for the past 10 years, and have been completely ignorant to the cruelty chickens and dairy cows endure. I became a vegetarian for animal rights reasons and it would be hypocritical of me to turn a blind eye to this and continue to eat eggs, cheese, and other dairy products.

It all started with reading an article from Compassion Over Killing (http://www.cok.net/) and realizing "Free Range" did not mean what you would THINK it meant! I started feeling guilty about buying and eating eggs. After reading "The Face on Your Plate" it was over. Veganism here I come!

So I decided to start this blog, because as a vegan virgin, everything is new and sometimes you just don't know what to do or where to start!

I am going to rate all the vegan foods I am going to gobble up, what's good and what's not so good, as well as vegan restaurants and recipes. This is also where I am going to post all the vegan cakes I will be testing out because I have decided to phase Sweet Catastrophe to be completely vegan by 2010!

I know many people think being vegan is unhealthy or tastes like ca-ca and I want to prove them wrong :) Hopefully it may open the eyes of some meat eaters and help vegans be deliciously satisfied!

October 1st is the big day!