Trader Joe's Plant Based food

I hope everyone is having a good week so far!  It's a good Wednesday here plus we're getting free lunch at work.  Nothing like free food to brighten up a day :)  And we're going to Seasons 52, which is known for having a healthy menu with lots of vegetarian and vegan options.  I've been trying to transition to eating more vegan instead of vegetarian (mostly because of my cholesterol) and I've had mixed success on it.  But it's definitely easier with places like this that have so many options.

The other thing that makes it easier is grocery stores that have lots of quick vegan options.  I prefer to cook myself but don't always have the time to do so and it's nice to have quick and easy options at home so I'm not tempted to just get take out.  We splurged on a Trader Joe's trip a couple weeks ago and found some great vegan meals.

Here's a couple of things that I tried.

Cauliflower Gnocchi - Vegan and gluten free!  I had been hearing a lot of hype about this and I was a little worried it wouldn't live up to the reports I'd read.  But it was so good!  Mike and I both really liked it.  We served it with a simple tomato sauce, garlic bread, and a salad on the side.  The trick is not to follow the cooking directions on the bag though.  Apparently if you cook with water, they get too mushy.  I just sauteed them in a pan with olive oil.

Vegan Tikka Masala- I'm pretty picky about my Indian food.  Nothing lives up to my mom's cooking of course but this frozen meal from Trader Joe's was pretty good!  It was easy to heat in the microwave and tasted delicious.  I liked that it had seitan so there was a good amount of protein.

Jackfruit Curry with Jasmine Rice - I was really excited to try this since jackfruit isn't something that you see out there that much.  And it didn't disappoint!  It was another hit.

Vegan pad thai - I did try a vegan pad thai that I sadly was not a fan off.  It was somehow both too sweet and too spicy at the same time.  It just had a weird flavor to me so I can cross that one off the list.

We also tried their Everything But the Bagel seasoning and it is amazing!  It's a blend of seasonings that you would find on an everything bagel - sesame seeds, poppy seeds, garlic, salt and onion.  I tried it on a bagel, of course, but I've also tried it on avocado toast, pizza, and in ramen.  It is really versatile and does a lot to perk up the flavors of whatever you put it in.