Anywho...I've heard of this brand Upton's for awhile but it just floated through my mind like many of the new vegan brands out there. Some are great and stick around forever, some are gone before you could even figure out how to pronounce their name. It would take me weeks to go through this blog and delete all the vegan products that no longer exist. But I hope that Upton's Bacon Seitan is never one those. Because for the first time ever, I have fallen in love with a faux bacon. For those transitioning to a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle and are more familiar with pork bacon than I am I will add a disclaimer now, I cannot attest to whether or not this actually taste like bacon. Although, in some ways it reminds me of turkey bacon, but it's been nearly 15 years since I had turkey bacon (see, when you throw out number like that you just sound plain old!) What I can tell you is that I love this stuff. My mind is blown, my heart is full of joy and my wallet is about to be lighter because I'm heading back to the Whole Foods where I found this stuff and buying a case today. Our Whole Foods back in Atlanta doesn't carry this box of happiness and I'm not taking any chances. This stuff is going on the plane with me.
by Reuben Proctor and Lars Thomsen and 
by The EG Smith Collective. Back when I was a newbie vegan I found Animal Ingredients A to Z to be incredibly helpful. It didn't occur to me that marshmallows weren't vegan or that royal jelly came from insects. It's a thin book, less than 100 pages of content and I felt it got right to the point and put me on the right track. I felt empowered by the book and as I thumb through it now I see some of the pages that I earmarked and regard those early days of my vegan adventure with a bit of whimsy. The newest book on animal ingredients Veganissimo A to Z, in contrast, is almost 300 pages long and it packed with over 2,500 different ingredients. For me, this crosses over from the line of informative to overkill. From super helpful to vegan police. Everyone is different, some people might really love having 2,500 different food, beauty and home product ingredients at their fingertips at all times. I'm not one of those people. Veganissimo is a well organized, well thought out, well written collection of products and ingredients and if I was just looking up something specifically it would likely be the first place I went to but for a new vegan I think the book is just way too intimidating.
), with baked beans, steamed broccoli, leftover skillet fried corn and sliced cantaloupe. For dinner we had BBQ Tofu (using the Hickory Maple BBQ Sauce recipe from 
) that I paired with steamed green beans from the garden, brown rice and left over gravy from the chik'n fried steak I made earlier in the week. Then I capped it all off with some homemade strawberry ice cream made of cashews, frozen strawberries and agave nectar (so simple!)
, with steamed veggies tossed in flax oil and homemade dinner rolls
