VeganMoFo

And our soon to be much more stylish winners are:

Benjamin, “This southern boy misses his biscuits and gravy, so the Italian style sounds perfect to me!”
Ricky Blue, “I live in Chicago so I get the wraps for lunch at one of the Lakeview Whole Foods locations at least once a week. I love those wraps. I wish they had them everywhere.”
Candace, with this epic tale, “::Setting the scene:: I was broke, I was young and a new vegetarian. What a set up for disaster. I wasn’t eating properly and didn’t know how to get a balanced meal with the foods I was supplied with. I started trying every meat substitute known to man in order to try and curve my cravings for something substantial…morningstar this.. gardein that… With many successes and failures I started getting staple ingredients to begin creating a normal eating routine and getting the adequate nutritions a vegetarian needs. I was out shopping getting my normal fresh produce, already being stocked up on frozen meat substitutes, when this little 1920’s man with a lovely mustache was staring at me. “No Candace, you don’t need anymore food,” I told myself. “But..look at that packaging..is it recycled material?” My can’t-stop-won’t-stop-$11.71-account-balance self counteracted. The yellow label of the ground-beef style seitan accenting the delicious contents inside were inviting. As I stood in the aisle handling the package reading all the labels, all the ingredients, I saw my hand slowly lowering into my tiny basket filled with greens. The rest is history…”

I will email you all right now!

Upton’s Naturals has two things that make it a unique and awesome vegan company:

1. They have the coolest packaging/gimmick. Who doesn’t love mustaches?

2. They make pre-packaged seitan that is DELICIOUS.

The first time my husband spotted Upton’s in the health food store, he stopped and got really excited about seitan chorizo (and mustache packaging). Now, if you’ve tried pre-packaged seitan before you can understand why my response was, “Ugh, I can MAKE that.” Brian’s reply was narrow eyes and package clutching until I agreed that he could try it. It was love at first bite! Not only is the chorizo really good, but I quickly realized that we had finally found a replacement for Morningstar crumbles (no longer vegan) for taco nights. Now, if we don’t have some kind of Upton’s in the fridge, Brian gets cranky. We also really like the italian style for biscuits and gravy.

Not only is Upton’s tasty, but they don’t use a ton of weird ingredients, it’s just straight up seitan with spices, like you would make at home. But conveniently flavored and ground for you!

Upton’s doesn’t have free product coupons yet, so they offered to clothe three vegans with their awesome t-shirts, featuring the Upton’s logo! They are unisex Gildan shirts, sizing chart here. You pick the size so don’t worry about getting stuck with a shirt that is 18 sizes too big or small!

To enter to win, comment here and tell us which Upton’s product you like to use and for what, if you haven’t tried their products tell us what you would if you could. US only, I will pick three random winners on Friday morning.

Our winner is Megan, who says, “A dab does the job on my Ezekiel bread!”

When I first made the transition from vegetarian to vegan, I did so with enthusiasm and excitement. I was already eating soy yogurt and drinking non-dairy milk, I had learned about vegan baking…and then I tried an not-to-be-named margarine that happened to be vegan, and I kind of halted, because it was not good. Now, i’m no Paula Deen with a stick of butter in every dish, but I like a little pat of it on my toast, in my oatmeal, with potatoes…it is definitely my fat of choice. For the first time, I was concerned that I was really giving something up.

Thankfully, I quickly learned about Earth Balance margarine! I believe my initial reaction to trying it was something like, ‘ohthankgod’. I had a delicious, buttery spread to carry me forward into my new lifestyle. And their line is always expanding! Not only do they have the buttery spreads and sticks, but they now have vegan mayo, soymilk, and nut butters. And of course, everyone has at least seen the pictures of everyone enjoying the new coconut spread at Vida Vegan Con, which is delicious on anything you would normally put butter on (try it on cornbread).

Today, Earth Balance is offering one lucky winner a bamboo cutting board and a year’s supply of Earth Balance (12 free product coupons)! Just comment here, telling me your favorite food/recipe to use Earth Balance with, be it a baked good or just on bread. This one is open to US and Canada, a winner will be randomly chosen tonight at 11 pm CST.