Friday, April 25

Vegan Cook Books...!

The Vegan cookbooks I bought are fantastic!! I bought Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson ( 400 Irresistible Recipes with Fantastic Flavors from Home and Around the World) .. this book is awesome! I started to bookmark the recipes that looked the yummiest.... and now my book is literally frilly with page markers!!! One of our favorite recipes so far is Cranberry and Walnut Oatmeal cookies!! Delicious! We've also made Tuscan Bean Soup and tonight we are having Freeform Caramelized Onion Tart!! I can't wait!!!!!!

The other book I bought was The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, Meat - Free, Dairy - Free Dishes from the Healthiest Region Under the Sun by Donna Klein. Out of this book we have tried Sauteed Cherry Tomatoes with Mediterranean Herbs.. and they were GOOD!! This book is also frilly with page markers!! Would you believe that all these choices are actually making it HARDER to choose what's for dinner!?!?! :D

Too ... Many... CHOICES!! :D

Thursday, April 24

AP'ing the body.... The Eager Vegan

So...! For some reason, I forget what now, Jessie asked me what a Vegan is. I told her that a Vegan is like a Vegetarian, but a Vegan avoids any products that involve animals, such as honey, dairy, eggs, leather etc.... She decided she would like to try being Vegan too. I have wanted to be Vegan myself for sometime, but didn't want to force it on the family so this was a great opportunity for me! :D I took her for Mommy and Jessie day to Barnes & Nobles where I picked up two FABULOUS Vegan cookbooks! It took some looking, as many vegan recipes are "take soy meat product and soy mayonnaise, mix with soy margarine and soy sour cream...." BLEURGH!!!! The books I found were real recipes, with REAL vegetables and very little, if any, "fake" food!! We've done quite well for our first week! Jessie was pretty disappointed to find that she couldn't have her standard "Mac and Cheese" when we went out one day at lunch! Also, Ice Cream was out.... only now I have found a super Rice Cream recipe with Rice Milk! :D The only side effects we have suffered so far was an interesting and somewhat surprising reaction in the bowels department!! (Poor Jessie!!!) Suffice it to say she needed a bath.... that's all I'm saying.

We've begun a new schedule system! :D At night our routine is laid out and the kids follow it without any trouble! This leads to them being tucked up and sleeping by nine. I've finally given in and succumbed to going to bed at ten. I've found that getting that little bit more sleep makes the days just that bit nicer! :D

I'm working on a schedule for mornings... they really do seem to help us, much as I claim to despise them! I've always, since I was a small child, said I hated routines, but now I wonder how much of that was me just repeating what I'd heard from adults. Routines really do seem to make life SO much easier.... I'll let you know how they go! :D

The weather is just fabulous here at the moment, though we are predicted to have some storms today, with a moderate risk for severe weather. Marvy! Hubby is out of town today .. I LOVE getting bad storms when hubby isn't home. Just great! :D

Anyway, off I go for now. Just wanted to post a quick update on what's going on around here since I haven't posted for a long time and several people have been kind enough to remind me that they looked for updates! :D Thanks guys! You know who you are! :D

Toodles all...!! :D

xxxxx