Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Cheap Books, FREE Delivery!!

I may already be preaching to the converted but I am sure there are some of you who were 'out of the loop' just as I was!

The Book Depository is awesome! It has FREE delivery WORLDWIDE! WOW! That's huge!! (I find the postage for overseas such a killer!)

And they have an awesome range of books. I've just ordered


9781600940002.jpg

For $17.98 (remember free delivery!)

Anis-Raw-Food-Desserts.jpg

for $18.08

and her new book out in a couple of weeks time:

Anis-Raw-Food-Essentials.jpg

$19.98

So Cheap!! 

I had a look at some of the books I already own and I have found the cost to be about HALF PRICE compared to what I have paid in Melbourne! Can you believe that???

For example:

I bought
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For $29.95 in the city but it is only $14.98 on Book Depository! (FREE delivery!)
Vegan-a-Go-go!.jpg
This one cost me $29.95 also here but is only $13.48 on Book Depository!

Do I need to go on??

Make sure you change the currency selection to Australian Dollars (only if you live in Oz, BTW!) and see whether you can control yourself!

In case you are wondering, I have actually ordered from them before and have not had any problems with delivery. In fact, it was quite prompt.

And no, I am not getting any commission for the review (although that would be nice!)

Tahn

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Nachos from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah

We've all tried making nachos of some description before, but tonight I wanted to try the recipe from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah by Ryan Splint and Vanessa Johnson. This cool cookbook arrived on the day I was leaving to go to Bali in January so I didn't have time to have a good look at it.

The nachos recipe (p. 34) consists of a few different recipes and I used the Taco and Burrito Fill (p. 33) - except I used a tin of Sanitarium Casserole Mince (I have a heap of them lying around!) instead of TVP. I also wanted to try the Cheese Sauce (I'm always up for a new variation of recipes I usually use), p. 5 and Almost Sour Cream (p.10). I had a jar of salsa, so I used that and topped it with spring onions.


The nachos were delicious! All the kids scoffed them up even though they had a little bite to them (not nearly as much as the recipe calls for, though!) - they must be getting used to it! Time to turn the heat up a bit!

For dessert I whipped up the rest of the silken tofu (that I used for the sour cream) into a whipping cream and a peach crumble, both recipes from 1000 Vegan recipes. mmmmmmm

Sunday, April 18, 2010

New foods, homeschool fun and a birthday


Wow, have I been busy of late! New recipes have been tried, not photos have not been gotten. I'll be honest and call it as it is - laziness! Here's a meal we had just the other night that I did take out 5 minutes to click away before stuffing it lovingly into my gob!
Country Fried Tofu with Golden Gravy (1000 Vegan Recipes, P. 285) with Szechuan String Beans (Vegan Planet, P. 196) and of course, sweet, sweet corn!

Well, officially we started home schooling one week ago. We are having so much fun. One topic, which began with a reading book called 'Granny Grasshead' ended up with us making our own grassheads. We had a ball making these on the back lawn with a heap of supplies. A few weeks later here is what they look like:
Tweenie's grasshead

YM's grasshead
Baby's grasshead
And, yep, even I made one! The best thing about homeschooling is learning shoulder-to-shoulder with my kids!

Recently it was Baby's 8th birthday and she wanted a chocolate cake. 'No problems,' I said as I picked up my favourite go-to book '1000 Vegan Recipes' by Robin Robertson and I came across the perfect cake for her.
This is the most delicious 'Vegan Chocolate Mousse Cake' (P. 445). It has three different sections - the cake, the mousse in the middle and a chocolate ganache on top. Ch Ch Chocolate overload!

Happy birthday my beautiful baby girl. Why do you have to grow up so fast?

Tahn

Friday, April 16, 2010

I've been censored!

Not in a major way, just enough to annoy.

On a forum I have recently joined (nothing to do with food/veganism etc - miles away from this topic) someone posted a rather yummy sounding vegetarian wonton recipe. The only thing not suitable for vegans was the inclusion of a single egg.

So I posted a comment saying how yummy it sounded but suggested that people replace the egg with no egg replacer because the egg wasn't used as a binder and in brackets I wrote "It's a chicken's period, people!!" followed by two emoticons - one of a green 'sick' face and the other of someone covering their ears saying lalalalala.

Nothing but the truth, right? Seems this was taken as offensive and before long a moderator had taken down "It's a chicken's period, people" as well as the two following emoticons. The rest was left.

Now, I gotta tell ya, I was pissed. There is another thread started by someone letting people know they are going to be buying a bulk lot of some sort of animal (pig I think) and asking if anyone was interested in buying the meat from them. Why isn't this censored? I don't agree with the topic, and it is against my beliefs but did I put in a complaint? What annoys me the most is that I don't feel there was anything offensive about what I said, rather it was the truth and I find it frustrating that people are trying to hide the truth.

I think the 'censorship bar' must be set REALLY low if this is what they feel they have to censor.

And to quote Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe 'I actually feel more comfortable with people eating meat if they can face up to what they are doing than those who can't bear to think of the poor animals they are eating.' 
Well said, Johanna - I couldn't agree more!


Reminds me of the issue I had at xmas.


I feel better now, thanks for letting me vent!

Tahn