Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Yep! Totally! I just told my husband that we need to stop eating out so much. Most of the stuff we order at non-vegan restaurants are things we can make at home for so much less. We are spending so much for the only reason that we've been lazy lately... not cool!

I just make it a point to order the most complicated stuff at vegan restaurants. Otherwise, I just think the whole time how I could've made it cheaper/better/whatever.

Well yeah, but you're paying for the convenience. I usually only get mad if the food is so sub-par/the portions are so small. Like paying $6 for a single, plain waffle at Vegadeli in St. Louis. Or there was this briefly lived vegetarian cafe in Nashville before Wild Cow, I was so excited and I took my mother-in-law, who ordered tofu broccoli stir-fry. It came with the soggiest rice and the sauce was just soy sauce. Not only could I make that at home, but if it had looked and tasted like that it would've been one of those times where *I* would've eaten it but never would serve it to someone else.

I often think that when I go out for a meal - that I could do so much better (& cheaper) myself. And it's not because I think I'm such an amazing cook - I'm astounded by how poor so much of the vegan food has been that I've ordered. I want to support local vegan cafés, but it's such an insult to be served horrible food. Last thing I had was a burger, & the pattie was so soggy & squishy & stone cold in the middle. If they can't even be bothered microwaving something properly, why am I paying $18 for it? And it's their JOB to make vege burgers, so you think they could formulate a recipe with a perfect texture & flavour that's well seasoned. Is that too much to ask? And they pile alfalfa sprouts (gag!) on everything, like it's 1985. Oh, & I got a slice of cake & a coffee a couple of weeks ago & the cream on the side was weird. My friend pointed out that it was basically sweet mayonnaise & that just put me right off. I can make the most delicious light, fluffy, whipped cashew cream at home - I don't need their super-dense, brick-heavy chocolate cake & sweet mayo! I often think, when I'm eating something I've made myself or that my friends or family have made, that I'd be overjoyed to be served something that good when I went out!

I think that's a problem with restaurants across the board though (or can be) if you're good in the kitchen. So many times Wilson and I would go out and he's be very 'meh' about his meal, but I mean, he's a chef.

I do get the Amy's meals when they're on sale though because I'm a lazy, lazy kid.

The fact that vegan frozen meals are so much more expensive than non-vegan is a huge pet peeve. I can hardly ever bring myself to buy them, unless I am travelling out of town to stay with friends (I always grab/bring one) or if for some strange reason they are on super-sale.

HOWEVER: TJ's sells a version of the Amy's vegan enchiladas. $1.99 I think.

ALSO: Target sells the Amy's enchiladas (with rice and beans) and the tamales for $3.19 each. They are really yummy.

I can afford those in a pinch or to have on hand. Barely. Annoying that my partner gets lean cuisine for like $1 each with coupons.

I don't love frozen dinners, but they are good to have around for emergencies....like a killer hangover.

Part of paying for a frozen meal for me is paying for the privilege to not have to do dishes...which is worth it when it's just me.

I used to eat a lot of Amy's. I just stopped using my microwave one day and got on with cooking. I mean the thing I liked from Amy's was the tofu scramble - come on now...so easy to make.

I may or may not have just had that.

If you write (email) Amy's or send them proofs of purchase, they'll send you a bunch of coupons.

Totally. I never like sit down at home and think "I could really go for an Amy's right now" or not even that I'm too lazy to cook. I'm too lazy to do the prep for cooking.

Steps leading to a frozen meal dinner:
1) walk in the door
2) see pile of dishes and infer I have no clean dishes
3) give up and go get frozen meal
4) later, rinse, repeat x4

I do really really really really like the Amy's burritos/wraps. So easy and yummy. Especially the Samosa one.

but they are like $2-4! I'll just to go taco bell. $.59

I need to get my asparagus in the kitchen this weekend and start freezing stuff. I posted something in the kitchen about freezing this recipe I found which is a copy of an Amy's tamale pie. Here is the recipe.
http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/0 ... male-pies/

I also want to get some good low-carb wraps and make freeze some burritos for future dinners/lunches.

But you know what I will do this weekend instead? Drink beer and eat tacos.

Me too. And then on Monday I'll buy 9 Amy's burritos and pat myself on the back for planning my meals for the week.


My pet peeve is myself.

That's just evil. A similar thing happened to me my first Thanksgiving as a vegetarian--apparently there was ham in the scalloped potatoes, and someone told me there wasn't. It might have been an honest mistake on my aunt's part, but my brothers and cousins chanted "You ate Wilbur, you ate Wilbur!" until I started to cry. I was 12 and they were mostly younger than me but hoooly shiitake.

Yeah, or you live with someone (not Brian) who for some unknown reason refuses to wash even their own dishes and you have a painful skin condition that makes dish doing misery most of the time, even with gloves. Paper plates and frozen meals are currently keeping me sane. Pathetic, but sane.

mine too! only i won't admit that i need to buy nine burritos; i will convince myself that this week will be totally different, like i always do, and i'll buy lots of raw ingredients and nothing that i can just eat, and then when i face that sink full of dishes i'll settle for three nectarines dipped in tahini or something. this is making me so annoyed with myself that i'm going to do some dishes right now.

Yes, this is exactly me. I have such good intentions! I did a little better this week, making a bunch of things on Sunday, but I still have plenty of raw ingredients and nothing to eat. I got a bagel today because I guess I just ran out of steam.

And when I get home from work tonight and do the dishes I didn't do last night, I think I'll order pizza. Or buy a frozen one. Whatever leads to not doing more dishes.

See, and at MY Starbucks it's a $0.60 surcharge on a soy latte BUT when I ask for the s'milk for my Americano they offer to warm it for me! Wierdos...

OK, this is my pet peeve, manufacturers not updating the packaging when they change their recipes.

I found out when researching my food allergy that even if you read the label for the ingredients, sometimes manufacturers will continue to use the old packaging until they use it up. Which means sometimes what's in the box/can/bag doesn't match the label. I have learned (the hard way), even if I've bought something in the past read the label and make sure it didn't change.

I find this really problematic for SO many reasons. Is it really be that hard to put a sticker on a package with the updated list of ingredients?

My Amy's pet peeve (well, one of them) is that except for the tamales, I don't really like the vegan ones very much. Stir fry bowl with tofu and rice? Meh. That loaf, oh the loaf.

When I'm emperor of the universe / an eccentric billionaire, I'm going to develop my own line of Hungry Vegan frozen meals. They'll be two pounds of food, and a) there will be compartments, b) the top middle one will have a @#$%ING BROWNIE for the love of all that is holy. At least in the fried seitan one. Whole foods will charge $29.99 apiece and market it as a family dinner for 4.

Pet peeve that happens all the time, including tonight: going to a restaurant and saying no cheese when I order, then it comes out with cheese. Not easily picked off cheese, but all melty, or crumbled, or shreds so it's really all over anything. Cheese makes me ill so I have to send it back and then I feel like crepe for wasting food.

I totally understand when a restaurant is busy and mistakes happen orif it was more of an infrequent occurrence but for pete's sake, the restaurant I went to tonight was totally empty. And it happens at least 50% of the time. Is it so weird to leave off cheese (or mayo, or sour cream)? I guess I'll just start saying it twice, which makes me feel kinda jerky. Last night we went to a deep dish place that has vegan cheese (and a vegan pizza) but the last 3 times we've gone, they've put regular cheese on the vegan pizza! And then they won't make you another deep dish because it takes 30-40 min to bake. We triple checked last night that the order was corret (politely, of course) and they acted all offended. Gah!

New peeve: I work with someone who has inexplicably started offering me blatantly non-vegan food, saying, "I know you're vegan, and you don't eat meat, but I brought meat-stuffed-meat with meat sauce that you're welcome to try." I cannot figure it out. She's always been friendly and curious about the food I eat, and has never felt compelled to offer me food in the past (we've worked together for about six months). I always politely decline and she never seems offended, but...uh, weird?

Whenever people offer me non-vegan stuff, whilst saying, "I know you're vegan, but I just thought I'd offer", I just say something like, "That's ok, you don't need to offer since it's not vegan, so don't worry about offering next time, no need to feel bad". I can understand feeling uncomfortable about sharing food with everyone except one person, for example... sometimes people just need to be reminded that you won't feel like they're being rude.
It is pretty weird that your co-worker just started doing this out of the blue, though.

At my old college, we had a dining hall that served more "traditional" college food. They offered both a vegan burger and a vegetarian burger (has cheese in it). The way you would order would be to take an order slip, circle what you want and hand it to the cashier. Every single time I would circle "VEGAN BURGER" and 99% of the time it would come back as the vegetarian burger. The first time I didn't realize it until I bit in and saw the cheese. Then I'd have to wait in the line again, hand it back and tell them it was the wrong thing and show them my slip, then wait for them to heat up another. Some cooks would be super cool with it and apologize, others would argue with the cashier or me about it.

Another peeve about that place was that they would display what food they were serving that day and put a sticker next to it for whether it was vegetarian, vegan and/or gluten free. They always labeled the curly fries as vegan even though they shared the same fry as the chicken. I guess most people wouldn't think about that but a.) as a company that serves food to a college and prides themselves on knowing the definitions of vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and being able to fulfill the requirements for special diets, I think it's important that they know these things and b.) it really wasn't awesome for the vegans or the vegetarians to get a basketful of curly fries and fried chicken.

Third, on top of mislabeling things (there was more than just the curly fries), the other dining hall would routinely make a tofu and veggie dish and then cover it with cheese and serve no other vegan food at the same time. No one ever really touched this dish either so I don't know why they kept putting cheese on it. It almost felt like they were teasing us. Just like that time they made kale but put cream in it or that other time they made kale and put bacon in it. Stop dirtying up my kale!

Truth! My dad makes fun of me because when we eat out, he always asks me how my food is and I say "It's okay" or "Good enough". Well, if I made it myself, it would be better! But my dad won't eat anything I cook because he does not eat carbs (at all), and he doesn't cook, so if we want to eat together we have to go out.