Post Punk Kitchen Forum

USA folk - please help me with a mofo blog post project! I want to see if I can find certain products that people love in local grocery (not whole foods stores). I want to prove vegan food can be found anywhere!

What is your easy to find favorite/can't live without vegan product/food?


If you answer please leave your blog link so I can give you credit. :)

Here are some of mine:
Hot Sauce (I like Texas Pete best, but Tabasco is probably easier to find in most parts of the country)
Dry Navy Beans
Fresh strawberries
Frozen Cherries
Slivered Almonds
Dried cranberries
Plain rice cakes
natural peanut butter
sunshine burgers and daiya are becoming available at regular groceries

I'd say mine are quinoa, canned chickpeas, cilantro, black beans, veggie broth, and red lentils.

Oreos
Swedish Fish
dried beans/canned beans
lentils
peanut butter
oats
rice
canned tomatoes
frozen veggies
tortilla chips
hot sauce/sriracha
salsa
you can find canned vegetarian chili most places these days

Those are just some off the top of my head

what I can get and look forward to wherever i travel in north america:

canned chickpeas
chutney and salsa
those goya canned chili beans, which are so freaking amazing when you bake them into cornbread, and are found almost everywhere
soymilk (you never know how bad you miss it til you move somewhere they don't have it)
hard pretzels and natural peanut butter
fresh corn tortillas in the dairy case

I'm super poor, so I do a lot of shopping at WinCo, which, if you don't have in your area, is a major cheap bulk place.

Things I get there:

Nutritional Yeast
Gluten Flour
Dried nuts/fruits/seeds/grains
Tofu
Smokes tofu (!!!)
Gimme Lean
Boca Burgers
Better than Bullion
Soy milk, etc.

And a whole lot of other stuff.

The only things I haven't found there that I really want to get, but can get if I cross the street to Fred Meyer are:

Daiya
Tofutti
Vegan Ice Cream (e.g. So Delicious)


Otherwise, I can live off of that. I go there once a month to stock up on staples (I moved out of the burbs to Downtown so it's out of my way now), and once a week I get fresh fruit/veg/any desperate re-stocking at the Fred Meyer Downtown.

It goes well!

I barely have to go to Whole Foods ever, unless I want, like, fresh figs.

Ritz
taco Chips
grains (rice, quinoa, millet, etc)
beans, canned or dry
frozen fruit
Silver Hills bread
almond or peanut butter
rice milk
avocado
kale
nuts
tofu

Lately I've been big on:
- Coconut milk (for super easy homemade ice cream!)
- Black beans
- Chickpeas
- Kidney beans
- Frozen corn
- Bell peppers
- Sweet onions
- Red potatoes
- Some kind of yellow/white potatoes
- Firm tofu
- Tomato paste
- Original and unsweetened almond milk
- Jalapenos
- Sriracha

even though I'm Canadian, I think it is very similar to US stores here in some regards! If anything, we probably have less items to choose from, but here goes my list! :)

all fruits & veggies!
quinoa
brown rice
lentils and beans
extra-firm tofu
tempeh
soy milk
natural peanut butter
vegan ice cream
hummus
veggie burgers
Daiya (i can find it in most grocery stores near me now, yay!)

box of organic mixed baby greens (and pretty much all produce)
sri racha
beans
rice
almond milk
peanut butter
oreos
salsa
chips
pickles
coconut milk

Vegetables! But, I have to say, I lived for a long time in a neighborhood where the only grocery store had such poor quality produce that it was actually worth it to drive 20-30 minutes to a better one, and I know a lot of people don't have the option to do that. :(

Of course, now I live in a neighborhood where the produce at the regular grocery stores is just as expensive as WF, so I'm usually saving money if I just do all my shopping at WF rather than going to multiple stores. :-/

The "specialty" things I can't live without that some supermarkets might not have:
-Extra firm tofu
-Gimme Lean Sausage
-Sriracha
-Boca Chick'n patties

When I lived in a recessed farm town (pop. 800) in Missouri, there was some produce at the grocery store, and half of it usually looked like it needed to be thrown out the week before. It was sad. It will blow your mind how much you appreciate a 'regular' grocery store. Some of my favorites:

potatoes baked and seasoned with chili powder, salt and pepper
french cut green beans and french fried onions
beans, tomatoes, corn (all canned) and onion and bell pepper to make chili
ingredients to make bean burritos
bags of frozen veggies and rice
there was also a brownie mix that was vegan
and a frozen cherry pie
and a loaf of bread

I live in a much larger Missouri farm/college town now (pop 16,000) and one of the grocery stores is super cool about getting requests in. So now they have:

kale (recent)
tofu
non-dairy milks
soyrizo
vegan ice cream
vegenaise
vital wheat gluten
tempeh!! (recent)
Amy's Kitchen frozen stuff
Dr. Praeger's frozen stuff
some organic options

Then there is a small market that gets awesome produce and italian dry goods that you can't find anywhere else in town.

I still can't get things like nutritional yeast, raw nuts, shushi rice or nori... I have to pick them up when I'm in the city.

I dig this idea! And my blog is http://muffintopped.wordpress.com

Quality fruits and vegetables
Tempeh
Tofu
Earth Balance**
Vital wheat gluten*
Nutritional yeast*
Lentils
Popcorn
Almond milk
Siracha
Sourdough bread
Better than Bouillon*

*I have to get this at my local co-op
**I have to get this at Trader Joe's