And when will Costco start carrying bulk TVP!?

Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, local and raw food is a big thing in my area. Just ask when you go in and they may find it for you. I haven't seen bulk TVP except in their survival buckets, and a lot of survival food suppliers favor TVP. And a lot of vegans dote on the stuff but I avoid it.

But if you have a good whole food store with bulk, you can usually buy it by the pound or ounce and Frontier Co-op carries it too. If you can't find it and can afford to order it, they'll mail it to you. I've never gotten into tofu products, but wa lot of supermarkets here carry many varieties of soy products, from cheese, butter, meat substitutes and sprinkles.

Good luck with getting your TVP, just ask COSTCO.

I have made the "fake" stuffed turkey for vegetarian friends and relatives several times for Thanksgiving or Christmas, although my brother still prefers Tofurkey.

Here is their website: http://www.fieldroast.com

This is what I served: http://www.fieldroast.com/products/retail/hazelnut-cranberry-roast-en-croute/ You can only get it around the holidays, as far as I know.

Ingredients: HAZELNUT CRANBERRY ROAST: Filtered water, vital wheat gluten, expeller pressed safflower oil, cranberries, crystallized ginger (ginger, cane sugar), toasted hazelnuts, naturally flavored yeast extract, barley malt, organic wheat flour, granulated garlic, non-sulphured dried apples, onion powder, yellow pea flour, ginger juice (ginger, citric acid), toasted sesame oil, lemon juice, sea salt, irish moss (sea vegetable) extract, spices, organic wheat flakes, black pepper, tomato paste, garlic, red wine, natural hickory smoke flavor with torula yeast, rubbed sage, lentils, rosemary, paprika, natural liquid smoke and carrots PUFF PASTRY: Unenriched, unbleached wheat flour, water, palm oil and salt Contains: Hazelnuts.

Thanks for list of ingredients. I was using a 'cranberry goat cheese cutlet' product from the supermarket but don't react well to sodium.

The seitan recipes I found were complicated, almost as much as some of the fermented dishes for raw foodies. So if this is seitan, I'll see how it works for me.

Thanks hissyspit.

Did NOT regret it at all.

So much yum.

And you live where exactly?

Why? LOL!

Um...wait, what was the question?

like a pit bull from Mars.

I generally shop at PCC, COSTCO, Fred Meyer's, TOP and the Town & Country Markets. QFC started offering good organic produce a while back, too. It may be there and I've missed it as there are so many varieties of vegetarian and vegan available here, just great for me. I stopped buying Quorn because of the salt content but did enjoy those until I realized I had a problem with it.

I frequent my local HFS because it's a local, family owned place called Rollin' Oats.

A bit pricey with the shipping, but they were still frozen!

I think I even saw the product line at Safeway.

But I doubt many carry the holiday-ish versions outside of the holiday season.
I'm pretty sure I got the item flvegan mentioned at Whole Foods last Christmas.

For some reason, I just haven't seen them. But there are so many things put off into different sections of the stores that it's hard to find one specific thing. I'll go in and ask about Field Roast. Thanks for checking.

Gluten is the protein in all varieties of wheat. I have tried field roast patties and they are delicious.

Its a good source of protein. I got my mom the Field Roast - she loves it and we got her the Italian W/ eggplant sausage - she hasn't tried that yet. My mom has been a vegetarian for over 40 yrs and like I said, she loves the Field Roast.

We are going to try it too, they also make sandwich slices too.

The only fresh foods I ever had were carrots and apples. Everything else was cooked to death or came out of cans which my Depression-era family kept stacked in the pantry as their form of food security. Having had more than one family involved, my second grouping left me with TV dinners as they were at work. When the third group entered my life, it was all boiled food and heavy on meat and potatoes, more southern cooking with lots of grits, pork, rice, cornbread, etc. That was some really heavy eating there and they were determined to 'put some weight' on me.

When I left home I discovered salads! Honestly, I don't know how I survived and attribute most of my health problems growing up from eating what I now call the SAD way of eating, that 'dead food.' The bad thing about cooking for my family was the abundance of processed meals as they and the microwave came into vogue. Those things are all high-profit margin items and so the stores always pushed it but I'm seeing that healthier food choices are turning the tide in the stores to more lively food, at least where I live.

The website said to cut up the field roast sausages and use them for anything, so I may make some mock spaghetti with that, I think it would be good. I'm glad your mom was able to stay vegetarian for so long! I went vegetarian when I left home but was influenced by my husband to start with the beef again. I think people were still going with the illusions about the happy cow and all of that in the sixties and seventies.

Unless you know who's doing what personally, almost all food is factory farmed and it's not good for anyone, not the people, animals, workers or the environment but some people hold to their illusions. People are changing and that's good.

then back to vegetarian through college and law school (mostly due to poverty), married a carnivore and started eating meat regularly (3-4x a week, my husband was at 2-3 meats a day). My weight shot up, he has high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes.

We decided a couple of years ago to try to be healthier but no real plan in place. Now we are focusing on real food - trying to stay away from packaged food, buying local and trying to buy whenever possible meat that is locally raised, grass-fed and stuff. I am trying to push more vegetarian options. Its not hard for me because I may get the occasional meat craving, but rarely - he loves it.

We have started doing some research on foods (Michael Pollan's books for example and Bruce Bradley's blog) and its really shocking how bad and toxic our food is. You start finding out that the same chemicals used in embalming fluid or lighter fluid is in Slim Fast shakes and its just awful.

The factory farmed food like you said, its just awful. There is a local dairy that we get milk from and its like a night and day difference in the quality.

I have tried so many fake meats - ugh back in the 80's when some of the first vegetarian options came out, there were some truly horrendous tasting foods! - with my mom, so we share our favorites. When I saw the field roast and the sausages I bought her some and since it has her seal of approval I will be brave to try them!

The Quorn fake chicken products are really good too - my husband enjoys them.

Preparing vegetables in healthy and tasty ways is new to me - so many cookbooks just treat vegetables as a side to a meal starring some type of meat - just steam or mash a vegetable, but ooooh all the pictures are of meat. This summer, we are hitting the farmer's markets, vegetarian recipes at the ready and going to get adventurous!

Me and my girl are tryin to go vegan..

Very good but a bit pricey. I think I paid $5 for a small bottle.

Which is about half of what the price would be at regular supermakets. I alternate it with smoothies, generally don't use more than 8 ounces of the carrot juice a day.

A while back I was juicing fresh carrots, apples, ginger and garlic and the costs were about the same. So I re-use or recycle the Bolthouse bottle and overall it's been better than managing all that produce. The carrot juice is for reducing acid in my system, so I try to make sure to keep that up.

I also buy bulk peeled garlic, fresh ginger, parsley, cilantro and kale at COSTCO but unfortunately they were out of them this last time. And I knew that it loses nutritional value, but I've taken to freezing all of those to use as ready. I'm not mass drinking that as I was when I was doing a lot of detoxing.

Then I decided to juice my carrots. Took a pound of carrots to get one classfull. So I find it more cost effective to buy carrots already juiced.

Oh my...soooo yummy! I crumbled it and made an egg skillet scramble with onions, green pepper, sweet red pepper, and a little cheese, but before I added the eggs, my husband tried some of he sausage and loved it! He is a major meat eater and has been dragging his feet about trying vegetarian options but this convinced him. He likes it better than any meat sausage. I found it to be very flavorful and look forward to trying the other varieties.

I buy those bulk and cut them up and freeze them, also buy flats of fresh mushrooms and cook them a bit and freeze them. But I can hold back on the mushrooms and just use the field roast instead. I think most people will go vegetarian, vegan or raw vegan. Many of health conscious here are. It just feels better physically.

Instead of eggs, I added crumbled tofu & ended up with a tofu/sausage crumble. Then I put vegan cheddar on a tortilla, popped it under the broiler for a few minutes, piled the scramble onto the tortilla & rolled it up. Presto! Vegan breakfast burrito! Since it was my first time making this, I only used two of the sausages. When we were finished, my husband looked at me & said, "Next time, make them all."

Next, I want to try the plain style & serve it with my green chile sauce. I loved chorizo burritos when I was young. ~slurp.

It tasted so much like the real thing that I gave my dog "last bites" and she had a horrible allergic reaction to it resulting in our spending most of the night at an emergency animal hospital.

I, on the other hand, enjoyed it immensely with no ill effects.

I've given our girl tiny amounts of MSF and Boca products with no ill effects and just wasn't thinking. There are so many things that are bad for dogs. In fact, Daizie knows that "Sorry, bad for dogs," means quit begging and go lie back down because you're not going to get the last bite no matter how many tricks you do or how pitiful you try to look.

The apple sausage is terrific.