Books Galore- Cook books, Art books,AR Books, Religion Books, Etc

Well of course I love books. Find any excuse I can to purchase books. Love the way they look. The way they small... how easy they are to organize.... Love to learn new information... I do read fiction ever so often too, and I love to get immersed in a good story that lasts longer then a 2 hour movie. (Pictured is just 3 of my bookshelves. The rest are in other room and I am getting ready to bough another).

So I find my self buying tons of books. More then I should. More then I could read. Or at least more them a do read. Cook books! I love vegan cookbooks. They are my favorite books to get right now. Animal rights books and books that are anti- animal rights.. I love seeing both views and having that in the back of my mind in case the arguments ever come up. One book I would like to look at with out giving the fool my money would be Worship not the Creature. It drives me crazy when people set around the book store and read whole books. Well this would be one of those books for me. I would be the annoying one in the corner reading... lol ... any who.....

So I have been getting some awesome deals. Although it hasn't been on vegan cook books. It has been on other books of interest.
New Books at Bargain Prices
Last week , I stopped by a Borders Book store in Morgantown to use my 30% coupon. I was hoping they would have a better selection of vegan cookbooks then our other borders does. But sadly that store is smaller then our other one. I ended up getting a big stack of books for $1 each. I did still use my coupon on The Backyard Homestead. John and I would love to become mostly self sustained. So I do some times pick up some books on how to get further into that. It was originally $18.95 and I got it for $13.28. Plus all the $1 books we picked up. ( The books that say 3.99 w/ a blue sticker are still on sale for $1 each)

( And no I don't buy into fad diets I just like reading about different nutritional stuff, Hinduism is not my religion I just like researching other religions, I don't think Cesar is Dog god, Green is they way I prefer to try to live, and the raunchy books I have no excuse for :) )

Used Books
The week before that I finally checked back in with the used book sale I visit from time to time beside Mannington Library. They have a huge amount of books. Although they used to have more. They cost anywhere from .0 to .50 and they also sell Magazines,audio books, VHS, Cassettes. They take all the libraries discarded books as well as the public book donations. So they are open every Friday and the same lady runs it. The last time we went I went looking for Fall magazines. I refuse to pay $4 or $5 dollars sometimes more for magazines. Except the few I am subscribed to like Vegnews & Vegetarian times. But I also ran into a huge pile of discarded photography books. Which is one of my areas of interest. I have a few manual cameras that I don't use very often. I would love to have my own darkroom one day. Maybe someday they will come out with vegan film. Who knows. I only spent like 2 or 3 dollars and got a bunch of books. Sometimes some stores send them discarded, brand new books with the covers ripped off. And they give those away for free. But most books are .10 cents each. I don't think she really charges you that for them when you have a ton of them like I normally go over and get. I think she just pops off a number... lol.. But thats ok with me. I used to go their all the time but then I realized between gas and the $2 to $5 I was spending on fiction a week I could save it and order alot of vegan cook books from amazon... So that ended my weekly visits. But I do still go back from time to time.

We also have a Barnes & Noble & Books a million- They both have bargain sections and Books a million even sells discarded library books now for $3.00 each. I haven't been there for a while. I will have to go visit. I wonder if they have coupons...

Today I went to AC Moore, Marshells & the other Borders books store in Clarksburg. I found quit a few interesting books. At Ac Moore I had some 50% off coupons so I used one on a book about crocheting food. It is very cute. Go to my next post to see which book I picked out. At Marshells I picked up 3 knitting books that have some really cute stuff in them. They were only 3.99 each. So that was a great find. They had quit a few books today. Maybe they are getting them in for the Holidays. I will have books to look at TJ Maxx where I also go to by books,, and cough, cough,.. cooking accessories.... um ..and they almost always have the Martha Stewart cooking school book for super cheap but I keep skipping over it because it has such a big section on meat. So I am not sure if I really want it. Anyways... Then I went to borders with another 30% off coupon but decided I would skip using it because I had already spent so much today.. plus I have a trip on Friday... But I did buy 2 more $1 books and I also bought and donated a book to the Children's hospital.

So it has been great book shopping lately.. But I still don't think I have had my fill... :)

Knitting & Food

Well I have been trying to get a lot done lately. Trying to quit procrastinating. Which I am so bad about. I have tried a few new recipes which I am going to write about and I have been working on knitting some stuff and getting supplies for the stuff I am going to make for Etsy. There have been so many creative things running through my head it has been hard for me to concentrate on one thing at a time. Which is where my problems come in. Like today I spent 3 hours at JoAnn Fabrics trying to pick out fabric and notions. I had such a head ache from trying to get all of the items that I finally gave up and went home. At least I got my grocery shopping done first. Which I really enjoyed. I love grocery shopping.... I love to find new products to try and just stuff that I have looked for in the past and then someone finally gets it in. I will say after the fabric store (which I normally enjoy) I was so stressed out that I didn't go to the 2nd grocery store that I wanted to hit. O well. But on to the food.

So I have been trying some new recipes. I love trying new recipes and I am going to do more of that this year. As well as cooking in bulk to freeze stuff like pasta sauce, soups, pies, pastries, breakfast food, breads, etc. I will post those recipes or links on this website or my other Vegannatura.blogspot.com. So keep a heads up. This summer I will also be posting bulk recipes for garden veggies. Anyways....

General Taos Tofu turned out great.... I have not really cooked Asian food in the past and I would love to try some more recipes. I have always had a hard time cooking tofu and this turned out really good. I can't wait to make sweet and sour tofu!!!!!! I will post pictures of that soon. :)

I also tried the Chili recipe off of Vegandad.blogspot.com. It turned out pretty good. I am not much for chocolate and cinnamon in my chili though. But it was a good Change. With this recipe I made some cool Chili corn dog muffins with the vegan smart dogs. They turned out really good. John loved them. I used the corn bread recipe from PPK. It was good as well. For more info Check out Vegannatura.blogspot.com.

This week I have been trying to hit food items I have had trouble with in the past .. Like the tofu. The next Item I tried was another Vegan Mac & Cheese recipe from Veg web called Delightful mac & cheese. Well I will just say I wasn't a big fan and neither was John. I hate wasting food but everytime I try a new Vegan mac & cheese recipe it ends up in the garbage... This version had a kinda "chickeny" taste to it. Which like I said on Vegan Natura .. It has been many years since I have had any meat so maybe I am a little off on this but... I just could not stomach it.... But It does have a ton of good reviews at veg web.. So try it. You may like it... But by the end Copper kitty had to come check it out.... lol ....

But Check out more details of my cooking experiments, the recipes & substitututions and other food ideas and more about just food. On my food only blog Vegannatura.blogspot.com