vegansaurus!

Guest post: A vegan guide to Madison!  »

So, you’re a vegan in Madison, Wis. Maybe you live there, maybe you’re traveling through. You may have a lot of despair in your heart, because you know that in Wisconsin, underneath the earth’s crust is a river of molten cheese. You may have also discovered that everyone born in Wisconsin is composed of pure cheese. In fact, if you were to shake my hand right now, it would melt.

Yes, the dairy industry is a proud part of life in Wisconsin. It can seem that there’s cheese at every turn (the streets are made of cheese), butter on every vegetable, and mayo in every salad. But if you know where to look, Madison can be a vegan’s delight.

Things I, Rachel, a vegan, ate at Madison restaurants: a list for your pleasure

• Lemon poppyseed cheesecake
• A BBQ jackfruit sandwich
• Tangerine champagne cake with raspberry filling
• A crab cake sandwich
• Split pea soup
• A grasshopper (a brownie with mint frosting)
• A scone
• So many muffins I am now known as “The Muffin Man”

AND MORE! “Lead me to this smorgasbord, Rachel,” you are saying to me right now. Forward!

The Green Owl Café
Located on Atwood on the near east side, The Green Owl Café is Madison’s first vegan/vegetarian restaurant. I went there twice in two weeks and wish I could transport it to Oakland so I could LIVE there. The most outstanding part of both meals was the desserts, which they make in house. The waitress said “Vegan lemon poppy seed cheesecake” and I screamed so loud it deafened her. I was like a hippo, making loud noises and eating everything and probably sweating from all the joy.

BBQ jackfruit sandwich

Tangerine champagne cake

Himal Chuli
Did you know that Madison has more Nepalese restaurants than any other American town? We have two, and they are next door to each other. Himal Chuli is where you go if it’s 2 degrees and hasn’t stopped snowing in three months. The food will warm you AND prevent scurvy! Their vegetarian menu is extensive, but I recommend the momochas and the takari (your choice of 2 vegetable blends). WARNING: the roti is made with yogurt!

Chocolate Shoppe
You can’t go to Wisconsin without eating ice cream. IT’S THE LAW. Luckily for us, Chocolate Shoppe ice cream is locally made and has soy options! My favorite flavor is the espresso oreo. The photo you see before you was taken when I ate ice cream for lunch one day. TREAT YO SELF.

The Willy Street Co-Op
This is the Rainbow of Madison, y’all. I ate like 55 muffins here? I also consumed a grasshopper as big as my head (see photo). The baked goods at this place kind of put the Bay Area to shame, you guys. The only thing they were missing is Cinnaholic rolls.

I left Madison with a sad heart and tight pants.

Rachel orders one pancake with her breakfast burrito at Saturn Café, just so she can cover the burrito with maple syrup. She organizes the SF Vegan Bakesales and is the genius behind @sfveganbakesale. Will you marry her?

New vegan gelato coming to Whole Foods!  »

It’s called Genuto (cause it’s made with nuts GET IT) and I tried it at last weekend’s World Veg Fest in San Francisco and wrote about it (and an entire World Veg Fest breakdown, with awesome photography by my phone!) over at the wonderful Bay Area Bites. Go read it and learn about this delicious new vegan gelato that’s about to take over your life! It’ll be in Whole Foods and local natural grocery stores staring very soon. Like, in a month. Or less. Anyway: Learn lt, love it, live it. 

Australia: Cocoluscious is vegan ice cream for the people!  »

GOOD MORNING AUSTRALIA!

I should jump in here and say it: I’m a CocoLuscious addict. I first tried it as an omni and it may or may not be a large part of the reason I became vegan.

A few of the flavours in The Green Edge, my local vegan shop thing.

CocoLuscious is a coconut milk-based ice cream that’s made with totally natural ingredients. And it’s absolutely delicious.

Originally there were three flavours: chocolate, coconut, and vanilla. Since then three new flavours have been released each season, so you can now get vanilla, coconut, chocolate, raspberry, mango, blueberry, chai, vanilla chocolate chip, peppermint chocolate chip, and the three new winter* flavours: coffee, Mexican chocolate, and chocolate chip cookie dough. The chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, so if you’re not down with that, be careful to avoid it.

The three new flavours are my favourites. The coffee is actually the best coffee ice cream I’ve ever eaten. The Mexican chocolate starts off like, “Yeah, so what? it’s jaffa ice cream” and then goes “BAM CHILI!” If you don’t like hotness, perhaps this is not the one for you. The cookie dough is obscenely moreish—my partner and I ate a whole container in one sitting. Two nights in a row. Not recommended, but also seriously recommended.

Best of all, I can actually pronounce all of the ingredients on the label. They’re nice normal ingredients like coconut milk, and raw cacao powder, and it’s sweetened with agave nectar. Really, nearly every single flavour is gluten- and sugar-free.

Initially, you could buy chocolate, vanilla, and coconut in organic or non-organic, which was slightly cheaper, but I don’t know whether that’s still the case now. All the new flavours are organic!

Cocoluscious used to be available in only a few health food stores in Southeast Queensland, but you can now find it in various places in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, ACT, and Western Australia. If you have a local health food store, you can probably just ask them to get it in stock.

There’s not much more information, but their website is cocoluscious.com.au, and you can also find them on Facebook.

James Hultgren lives in Australia. He doesn’t work for Cocoluscious, he just really loves the ice cream. This is his first guest post for Vegansaurus. Also, now we all want to move to Australia even more.

*Rememeber, the antipodean July is a winter month!

Raw ice cream sandwich challenge!  »

Look what I happened upon: A Dash of Compassion is hosting a raw ice cream sandwich recipe challenge! So fun. It’s just for June but you still have a few days to get down with some ice cream and cookies and bust out some genius! And guess what, there’s totally prizes! And what do we live for if not for prizes. From the blog:

• First Place winner will receive a Cacao Kapow Kit, which includes: a make-your-own chocolate superfoods kits, a 4 oz. bag of sweet cacao nibs, a cacao lip balm, and an 8 oz. bag of raw, organic cacao powder from Navitas Naturals.
• Second Place winner will receive a copy of Sweetly Raw’s brand new ice cream e-book that will be released this month.
• Third Place winner will receive a special goodie bag of raw treats.

Awesome! Is anyone going to enter? Has anyone already entered? Put your link in the comments so we can see!

[photos from A Dash of Compassion]

Vegansaurus NYC: Stogo!  »

Laura was in town briefly before her whirlwind vacay, but that was just enough time to get vegan ice cream! See what Laura has?: Priorities.

We went to Stogo together as neither of us had been there. We heard mixed things about it: some people are totally into it; some don’t like it at all. It’s not just vegan, it’s like hypo-allergenic, basically. They don’t use real sugar and stuff. I like my ice cream unhealthy!

I tasted the cookie dough and the hemp chocolate (they have other kinds of chocolate, kind of neat). The cookie dough wasn’t that cookie-doughy so I got the hemp chocolate (see below). Here’s what I can say: the hemp chocolate was SOLID. Very chocolaty good! So when in doubt, get that. But they let you try lots of flavors so you should do that. BONUS: they have cupcakes from BabyCakes and some treats from Cocoa V!

Who’s been here? What are your thoughts? Is it on your New York vacation hit list?