VegIU's Easter Weekend BBQ

As a vegetarian, I never know what to bring to BBQ parties. So I was excited to learn how to grill some vegetarian options.

Haley, Mia, Emily and I went hiking and geocaching on the morning of the grill-out. We shared a lovely vegetarian picnic near the damn at Lake Monroe after hiking at Cedar Bluffs Nature Preserve. When we came back into town, we stopped by Kroger to pick up some food to bring to the party and found out that it was Pineapple Party Day. Pineapples were on sale and there was an employee giving demonstrations on how to cut a pineapple. We enjoyed the free samples and decided that we needed to purchase a pineapple so VegIU could celebrate Pineapple Party Day during our event.

VegIU's vegan grill-out was amazing! We grilled asparagus, pineapple, bananas, spicy marinated tofu, portabella mushrooms, fake dogs, Tofurkey's "sausage," portobella mushrooms, & corn. Plus mango black bean salsa, grapes, cookies, & great friends made this a perfect evening!  It was my first time eating a Tofurkey sausage. I haven't eaten meat in 12 years, but the Tofurkey sausage surprised me as it had the texture and taste of real sausage. Even though I knew it was vegetarian, I couldn't eat more than two bites because it felt like I was eating meat! If you're a vegetarian or vegan looking for a substitute for the flavor & texture of sausage, the Tofurkey sausage should be a great option for you.

Karina's Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas

This weekend, I made these delicious sweet potato & black bean enchiladas from the Gluten Free Goddess blog and they were amazing! The recipe is vegan and gluten free, plus really easy to make. This is probably the healthiest Mexican food I've ever eaten. I added some cheese to the top while it was baking, but I'm guessing you could add some vegan cheese to yours if you wanted. I was pleasantly surprised that the texture of the enchiladas was so perfect without having a bit of cheese inside it. If you love enchiladas, you should give this a try. (And there's quite a few enchilada sauces at Kroger for super cheap that can save you some prep time!)

Upland added new vegan and vegetarian menu items

Upland Brewery added new vegetarian and vegan menu items. These include:

New vegan options:
Lunch- Southwest Tofu Salad & Portobello Sandwich & Vegetarian Chili
Dinner- Spicy Tofu Tacos & Southwest Tofu Salad & Vegetarian Chili

New vegetarian options:
Lunch – Meatlessloaf sandwich
Dinner – Meatlessloaf and Gravy Entree

They already have several other vegetarian options including a seitan Philly cheese sandwich, black bean burger, seitan schnitzel, Wit Macaroni & Cheese, Mushroom Pasta, Stuffed Shells, and Veggie Gyros.
Their vegan options include portobello mushroom pizza or seitan tenderloin, and Coconut Tofu salad. They have a segregated vegetarian fryer to prevent contamination with meat products for items like thier brewery fries.

Website's up!

We launched our new club website at http://www.indiana.edu/~vegiu on Sunday. We're really love your feedback on the content and what we can add to provide more value to vegetarians and vegans at Indiana University.

Also check out our new Twitter account @vegiu. We'll be sharing event information and  vegetarian/vegan resources on Twitter.