Magic Vegan Bacon Grease with Coconut French Toast

I've had this jar of Magic Vegan Bacon Grease for a couple months now. I've been waiting for the right place to use it. First of all, a lot of people have poo-poo'ed Magic Vegan Bacon Grease as gross. Well, it's coconut oil, people. Sure, there's some Vegan Bacon bits in there and some flavor, but you are cooking with coconut oil. Not so crazy, huh? People have said to cook the grease with green beans or some other veggie. That sounds delicious, but I knew I had to try something different. Enter Coconut French Toast from Isa Does It!

If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably noticed that I've been cooking a lot. There are many reasons why, but one is the challenge. I'm not a natural cook, so I count on the cookbook to be clear and precise. Isa Does It has been great in that regard. So, what I did was replace the refined coconut oil with the Magic Vegan Bacon Grease, alchemy!

As you can imagine, the Coconut French Toast turned out delicious. An already decadent breakfast was made more so. The hint of bacon with the explosion of coconut was heaven. Vegans finally get everything they want minus the cruelty! So, If you have something that you would normally cook in coconut oil, Magic Vegan Bacon Grease will add a fun smoky kick that you will enjoy.  

Phoney Baloney's Coconut Bacon

One of the most exciting products I've encountered this year is Phoney Boloney's Coconut Bacon. The coconut bacon is the brain child of Kyle Domer aka Vegan Vagrant. Just the idea of coconut bacon makes my mouth water, so I ordered some ASAP. The flavor is amazing because it really has that deep smokey bacon taste and to my surprise, the fatty element of bacon is somewhat reproduced and it almost melts in your mouth. The best part is that it has tons of uses and you can rub it in hipster faces that your bacon is cruelty free AND tasty.

As you can see, it really livens up a salad! I love the size and the texture. A bonus is that the bacon flakes are soft and not hard like Bacon Bits. I've been putting them on my salad more often then not this summer. Probably not the most low fat option out there, but it's mega delicious and filling. If you want instant flavor, here you go!

And if you are an ambitious Vegan, you should try Isa's recipe for Butterscotch Coconut-Bacon Cupcakes which uses Phoney Baloney's Coconut Bacon as a topping. Isa made these for Omaha Vegan Drinks and they were a monster hit! The salty coconut bacon mixed with the sweet cupcake was such a revelation. I'm think I want these again sooner than later, they're so good.

So go hunt down some Phoney Baloney's Coconut Bacon and let me know what you think!

Kettle Brand Maple Bacon And Sweet & Salty Potato Chips

These Maple Bacon and Sweet & Salty chips from Kettle Brand have cause a bit of a stir, specifically the Maple Bacon ones. Why? Because the Maple Bacon Chips are Vegan. Yes, some Vegans are upset that "bacon" is a Vegan flavor. I tend to be a pretty non-judgmental Vegan and I even enjoy the flavor of fake bacon in seitan, tempeh and now chips. As long as the flavor is created without harming an animal, why are you complaining? Go whine about something else while you type on your non-Vegan computer. Anyway...

So let's start this off with the Maple Bacon chips on the left. Do they really taste like bacon? There's definitely a hint, but I would align it closer to a BBQ chip. I do like it! It's sweet with a little bit of tang and some bacon inspired smokiness. Even if you are not a bacon fan, you're not going to cringe at the taste of these. I'm going to say the bacon name is mostly for marketing purposes. Good for Kettle for taking a bacon chip and making it Vegan!

Now, let's talk about the more innocent Sweet & Salty chips on the right. I find them really interesting. It's a basic potato chip that has been sprinkled with a sweet and salty coating. Pretty tasty actually, they remind me of sweet corn. The sweetness is restrained and doesn't take over the traditional potato chip flavor. They're probably best on their own, but I could imagine them tasting good with some Vegan sour cream dip.

Thank you to Kettle for making these flavors of potato chips Vegan! They didn't have to, and I certainly appreciate it.

Upton's Naturals Bacon Seitan

I know it's only July, but I think I've found my favorite product of the year. In fact, I've put off blogging about it for a couple months because I wanted to make sure I liked it as much as I thought I did. That product is Upton's Naturals Bacon Seitan and it has been life changing. So, two months and seven packages of Seitan Bacon later, I'm ready to review it!

I'm not going to lie: I liked bacon when I was a meat eater. But for some reason, pork was the first thing I gave up when I started going Vegetarian. I soon became accustomed to making tempeh bacon so I could still have my B.L.T.'s (or if you will, T.L.T.'s.) But as much as I liked tempeh bacon, it wasn't close texture-wise. I missed the flat, chewy, crunchiness of bacon. As time went on, I just got used to the fact that I would never have bacon again and that tempeh bacon was the best cruelty-free option.

Well, fast-forward a decade later and I'm holding a box of Upton's Natural Seitan Bacon in my hand. Is this the product I've been waiting 13 years for? For the most part, yes! Upton's Bacon is thin-cut, smoky and when cooked properly, crunchy. These are lean and tasty. The only significant fat you are going to get is from the oil you use to cook the Seitan Bacon with. You can overcook it a bit to get that "bacon crunch" you miss or cook it normal to a chewy seitan consistency. When done perfectly, it even gets that crisp at the edges, chewy in the center thing going on. So far I've had the bacon with pancakes, as part of a salad and of course, in B.L.T.'s.

It has a deep hickory taste with a definite bacon flavor going on. I can fry some up and eat it by itself (the true test of how good something is.) And when it really comes down to it, it's satisfying to know I didn't inflict harm on a pig to have a delicious B.L.T.  It comes already sliced up like tradition bacon, which is a nice touch. And I was happy to see Upton Natural's donates 5% of profits from Bacon Seitan to pigs at Farm Sanctuary!

Thank you to Upton's Naturals for this amazing Seitan Bacon, you made this former bacon lover very, very happy.