#omnomnomaly

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Me to my party, filling the shopping basket with eight packages of Trader Joe's soy chorizo: this is the food of the gods. We're gods, so we get a lot.

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Just completed the Ultimate Grocery Run of Ultimate Destiny. I now have everything I need for sweet and sour broccoli tofu, lemon cranberry muffins, lemon poppyseed muffins, vegan fettucine alfredo, and vegan parmesan substitute. The next two weeks are gonna Rock.

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The cranberry muffins and the poppyseed muffins both turned out #aesthetic and delicious.

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The chefs at the Kirkland and Seattle Google cafes are both seriously into cauliflower. This is my third cauliflower-heavy meal in a row. They are also extremely good at preparing cauliflower in various ways, and I would happily eat it for the next three meals too.

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Sandwiches: the good, the bad, and the weird

I am currently at Which Wich, a delicious sandwich joint in Indianapolis.

The good: they have lots of awesome [thing to put in a sandwich] options, including black bean patties and hummus.

The bad: there is a poster on the wall attempting to 1) coin the word "vibeology", and 2) define it as an adjective. Yikes.

The weird: they sell chocolate chip cookies with yellow m&ms in them, which is so heavily Pittsburgh Culture I keep thinking I'm already back there.

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Product review: Beyond Meat veggie burgers

I love me a good veggie burger, and the Beyond Burger has several advantages over other brands. First of all, it's actually vegan, unlike several popular brands of veggie burger, which are full of EGGS and DECEIT. Also, unlike the (excellent) Impossible burger, you can buy them in the grocery store (I get mine at Giant Eagle) and keep them in your fridge (the Impossible goes bad so fast there's not much point buying them if you aren't a restaurant). The Beyond burger is also quite tasty, and can be upgraded to Extremely Tasty with a bit of extra prep.

Straight out of the package, the Beyond Burger is kind of unappealing. It has the texture of raw ground beef and smells, I'll be honest here, kind of bad. Do Not let this deter you. These are solvable problems.

How to prepare a Beyond burger so it's Really Really Good Instead of Just Good: a Guide

Step 1: in a small bowl, mix about half a teaspoon each of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Maybe add some oregano or something, if you want.

Step 2: put the burger and the spice mix in a baggie and mash/fold them together. Mash thoroughly--you want the spices to be all through the burger, not just coating the outside!

Step 3: smush the burger back into a patty shape and stick it in a pan. Don't turn the pan on yet.

Step 4: if you like your burgers cooked medium or more, open a window, turn on the air hood over your stove, or disable your fire alarm. Cooking these things past medium rare has a tendency to make a lot of smoke.

Step 5: okay, now you can turn the pan on. The box says to cook on each side for 3 minutes on medium high, but I find that 3 minutes 30 seconds gets it more thoroughly browned and crisps up the outside nicely and generally makes the flavors better.

Step 6: it's cooked now. If you're not a fan of grease, squash it with a spatula until the grease comes out and dump the grease in the trash.

Step 7: shove it in your face.

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There are just so many kinds of vegan meat substitute in the world! Ikea vegan meatballs, soy chorizo, tofu in two different kinds of sauce I want to try, Beyond Burgers, Impossible Burgers . . . I have more vegan-meat-based recipes I want to cook/eat than I can eat in two weeks! Life is great!

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Fun fact: Daiya brand vegan mozzarella is mediocre at best, but Daiya vegan cheddar is amazing! I made a delightful grilled cheese the other day and I'm going to put it on Beyond Burgers later this week.