On The Verge of Tears

We love to shop at wholesale clubs, but it can be frustrating as well.  We cook almost every meal for ourselves, so it’s quite cost effective to buy raw ingredients in bulk.  Sometimes it’s difficult to find vegetarian, much less vegan foods at the wholesale clubs.  Don’t even ask about low sodium in there, either.  It doesn’t exist.

We know BJ’s  so well that we no longer need to read the labels.  We’ve read every label in the store, and they rarely change up the variety of their stock very much.  I was very surprised to see Monika had brought home a vegan chicken nugget pouch after visiting BJ’s yesterday.  As with other vegetarian products they’ve stocked in the past, this one may be short lived as well.  But I hope not.

The brand is Gardein.  It’s supposed to be a clever combination of “garden” and “protein.”  The actual name of the food they now stock at BJ’s is “seven grain crispy tenders.”  We baked them in the oven frozen last night with some sweet potato fries for about half an hour.  The directions said less, but I wanted them to actually be “crispy.”

nom nom nom

Well, needless to say, they were delicious.  I’m sending Monika back today to pick up four more pouches.  They were awesome.  We just had them as chicken nuggets with some organic ketchup to dip, but you could really use these things for all kinds of recipes.  Definitely could make a burger with them.  Could crumble them up in a big salad.  Even make them up in any baked chicken dish with perhaps a mushroom wine sauce, which is what I may try next.

I don’t expect to see any of their other all vegan foods in BJ’s, but I’ll be sure to look for them at my next health store or Whole Foods visit.  It looks like most of their products are made with wheat gluten, which is honestly delicious.  If you try any of their foods, please comment and let me know how you liked them.