Hummus & Veggies At I Love Juice Bar

The Hummus & Veggies box at I Love Juice Bar makes a great plant-based lunch. Check out the company's website to see all the vegan options they have.

Click here to see the I Love Juice Bar website

"Soft Opening" Of Hippea Camper Food Truck At Salty Nut Brewery In Huntsville AL

I went to Salty Nut Brewery in Huntsville AL for the "soft opening" of a new plant-based food truck called Hippea Camper. This opening may have been called soft, but veggie lovers lined up fast and kept going back for more tasty plant-based foods. Huntsville has been waiting for something like this. With a turn-out as strong as this was, I would predict the Hippea Camper will be doing some good business in Huntsville.

This well-organized catering event let us get a taste of what the Hippea Camper will have to offer and also get a peak at the camper before it goes into service.

I met some familiar like-minded people, and we shared and compared the foods. The first thing we tried was the Bread Winner, which is toast with avocado mash and tomato slices with a light sprinkle of red pepper. This was good!

Bread Winner by Hippea Camper

I chose to try the Beats Meatball Sub. It was "meatballs", marinara sauce, and vegan cheese on a potato bread hot dog bun. The hearty Italian style sauce was loaded with flavor. The "meatballs" had a nice texture and mild flavor, but were not meaty enough to make a vegan nervous. The cheese tasted like real cheese, and it did scare me. But they said everything was vegan. This was messy and difficult to eat, but it was clearly a winner! That sauce was really good!

Beats Meat-ball Sub by Hippea Camper

The Pineapple Express bowl was fried rice with pineapples, onions, cashews, and peas. The No Weenie Beanie Bowl was Spanish rice, Adobo barbecue beans, lettuce, and peach salsa. Both of these bowls were nicely spiced and good enough to convert omnivores. I couldn't pick a favorite. They were both very different.

Pineapple Express and No Weenie Beanie Bowl by Hippea Camper

No Weenie Beanie Bowl with vegan cheese by Hippea Camper

The cute vintage camper looked like it was ready for service. The exterior has the classic styling and the new interior includes modern stainless steel kitchen fixtures. It looks great, and I plan to be standing at that window soon.

The newly built Hippea Camper at the soft opening

 
Since I was there anyway, I also got a Salty Nut Imperial Mustache Red (5.6% ABV). Salty Nut Brewery has good beer, a very comfortable space inside, and a nice courtyard with string lighting and live music.

Click here to see the Hippea Camper website

The Humpty Dance Is Your Chance At Happy Tummy In Huntsville AL

The Humpty Dance Is Your Chance at Happy Tummy is vegan just the way it comes. It's a wrap filled with hummus, cucumber, artichokes, roasted red peppers, tomato, red onion, and spinach. It included my choice of chips (a bag of Garden Veggie Straws not pictured), and I added a Big Ol' Dill Pickle for a dollar more.

The Humpty Dance Is Your Chance at Happy Tummy in Huntsville AL

Happy Tummy satisfied me once again. This was really good! After several visits I still haven't tried all of the vegan options. I will continue to document my experiences. It may be a while. Herbivores have many tasty options at Happy Tummy.

Click here to see the Happy Tummy website

Dr Praeger's Four Potato Hash Browns

This product really filled my immediate environment with the smell of home. And the taste was equally comforting. These hash browns were chunky and crisp. The natural, earthy potato flavor was satisfying enough to make these small patties seem like a full meal. Vegans, be careful. Dr Praeger's has products that look similar to this, but they contain eggs. Always read the ingredients.

This is my first time trying this product. I like these enough to buy them again. I believe these hash browns would go well with Lightlife Gimme Lean Sausage to make a vegan breakfast. Also, kids will love these as a snack. Since I'm a grown-up, I served mine with swirls of Huy Fong hot sriracha  sauce.

Pintos and Rotel

I combined a can of Publix pintos (drained) with a can of Rotel Original Diced Tomatoes and Green Chilies. I heated it up. There it is. One of the easiest, quickest, cheapest meals on this blog. And it was really good!

Beans, Rice, and Salad at Mexiville in Chattanooga TN

They say it's vegan. It tastes so good it scares me. Is vegan food really this good, or is this a trick?

Del Monte Sweet Corn Cream Style

Dutch Apple Pie At Burger King

Can you believe the Dutch Apple Pie at Burger King is vegan? I read the ingredients. It's vegan! I had mine for breakfast with black coffee. The pie and coffee were both excellent. The very sweet pie went well with the unsweetened coffee.

Nashvillle VegFest 2019

Today I went to VegFest 2019 at the fairgrounds in Nashville TN. VegFest is a vegan and plant-based lifestyle festival.

The entrance of the fairgrounds was blocked by construction and no detour signs were posted. I've never in my life seen so many vegans, herbivores, vegetarians, and animal rights advocates in one place. The turnout was huge and it started up in complete chaos and confusion. The entry line went around the parking lot. It looked like the number of people was much greater than anticipated. Ironically, we were treated like livestock with long disorganized lines and holding areas with no room to move. I felt like one of the chickens in the vegan documentaries. But I made the best of it and found some wonderful treasures to share with you.

The massive crowd at VegFest Nashville 2019

My first stop was at the Core + Rind Cashew Cheesy Sauce table to get free samples. They had three flavors; Spicy Chipotle, Smoky, and Original. Each was fantastic in very different ways, and I could not pick a favorite.

In this first vegan food photograph you see my first snack of the event. I got a jackfruit slider with potato salad from the Sunflower Cafe table. It was excellent in every way!

Barbecue Jackfruit Slider and potato salad by Sunflower Cafe

I tried to make my way around to see everything, but the crowd was massive. I could barely see the vending tables right in front of me. After squeezing my way though the crowd I found peace in the lecture area and stayed a while.

I caught the interesting and enlightening talk by JL Fields (culinary instructor/cookbook author) and Andy Tabor (Compassion Company/The Bearded Vegans) about body shaming and food shaming within the vegan community and in general public. This was an important message that should be heard by more people. I hope they continue discussing those topics to create greater understanding and unity.

I went back out for another snack. This time I found The Wild Muffin and bought a lemon poppy muffin. It was light, fluffy, delicious, and not too sweet. Perfect!

Lemon Poppy muffin by The Wild Muffin

Lemon Poppy muffin by The Wild Muffin

I couldn't end it there. I wanted to experience more plant-based pleasures. I tried to get vegan tacos at Succulent Vegan Tacos, but the menu was too small to see and I got stuck in the long pick-up line instead of the long order line. I gave up.

Before I knew it, much of the food was gone. The Wild Cow's table would have been my next stop, but they completely sold out of the vegan lobster hoagies they were serving.

My only good option at that point was to try the barbecue jackfruit sandwich and potato salad at Avo. I really didn't want to eat the same thing again, but I'm glad I did. It was awesome! It was slightly better than the Sunflower Cafe slider combo, mostly because of the tastier bun and the heavier herbs in the potato salad.

Jackfruit Barbecue Slider and potato salad by Avo

This was a good event but the location was not right. It would have been better in the parking lot of the football stadium. If the event is in the same place next year, I will surely not attend. The fairgrounds building is primitive and still smells like farm animals when the air conditioning comes on. The building's floor plan is like a Halloween corn maze or haunted house. The number of participants was too great for the narrow side aisles. The dining area was too small. However, I wish not to leave you with negative comments. I did enjoy the food, I gathered some good product coupons, and I shared an experience with good people. I hope to attend other similarly themed events in the near future.

Vegan Nachos At Work

We had a nacho lunch party at work to celebrate our company's recent success. I was very surprised to see several vegan options. This is not exactly the way I would do nachos, but this sure is better than sitting there hungry while other people eat. I worked for that reward too, and this time I got to enjoy a little bit of something with the others.

Check out the black beans. They got the good kind, which is plain black beans with nothing else in them. This was pretty good coming from a company that has huge meat parties all the time. Of course they did have plenty of meat available.

Bohemian Barbecue Hippeas

The first 2 bites of the Bohemian Barbecue Hippeas tasted just a bit strange. Then my mouth understood where this was going. I ended up eating the whole bag, non stop! A small snack turned into a lunch. I have been very pleased with the Hippeas products. Very good!

Salad Made From Leftovers

I had some leftover hydroponic lettuce and slaw shreds. I dumped those in a bowl and poured some Daiya Non-dairy Creamy Caesar dressing on top, which was also a leftover. Instead of throwing food away, I try to eat every bit of it before it goes bad. It helps me stay creative with food combinations.