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With the Christmas season here, there is a good chance you are making cookies. And I thought it would be a good time to try out a bunch of recipes from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. It is a classic vegan cookbook that covers the topic of… well… cookies. It goes a little further covering bar cookies, brownies, and biscotti. Some of the cookies I made for christmas, and some I’ve made in the past for daily eating.

Photos

There are lots of photos in this book, I would say about half of the cookies have a photo. All are well lit and beautifully photographed. All the cookie photos are places on brightly colored backgrounds, making the photos very kid friendly (which let’s face it, we all remember the joys of cookies as kids.) There are enough photos to spark the reader in making new cookies, but I do have a problem. There are a few cookies that are nicely clipped to have white backgrounds and randomly show up in recipes. For example the Mexican Snickerdoodles show up in the recipe for Chocolate Marmalade Sandwich Cookies. At first I found this confusing, until I noticed the same cookies photo appearing over and over again.

Set-up

The book starts with some cookie basics which truthfully I skipped. I started to read it, but it can be painfully boring to the seasoned vegan baker. BUT it is filled with important information to a new baker. For example, I think my husband could read it and feel more confident about the different flours out there. There is even a section that have various troubleshooting situations. So if your cookie doesn’t turn out right, you can fix it.

They divide the cookies up by drop cookies, wholesome cookies, bar cookies, fancy cookies, and roll and cut cookies. When flipping through, it is easy to go from one section to another without ever noticing. I think this is true for all of their baking books. I am not really sure if I care too much about having “sections” or not. 

Writing

The book has the usual fun writing styles of Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. They really make you feel comfortable with baking, and make veganism seem less exclusive. They also make you smile for the “fancier” cookies, they aren’t that hard, you got this. The directions are easy and to the point, making it easy to tell if I need a stand up/hand mixer or just a big wooden spoon.

Overview

I love this cookbook. All these cookies have been winners, though I wish or rather could see this book being much bigger. Compared to the vegan pie in the sky and the cupcake take over the world, I feel like there are SO many types of cookies that I wish this book could be just a little bit bigger. There seem to be a large amount of drop cookies that used oatmeal. There also aren’t many of the classic Christmas cookies that you might find with Christmas tree decorations, or other classic cookies I grew up with. I know they can’t cover ALL cookies ever made, but I feel like there are so many that aren’t easily interchangeable like how a cupcake can be paired with different frosting to make a new flavor.

But everyone loves the cookies I’ve been making, and there are so many new inventive flavors. Carrot cake cookies? Grapefruit? Tahini lime? And out of all the cookbooks there are the least amount of “weird” vegan ingredients. Meaning I would feel pretty comfortable giving these recipes to an omni baker, who wouldn’t have to go out and buy new ingredients.

Below are all the cookies I made from the book- which is a lot. They are so good, and I recommend buying this book for any vegan who needs to make cookies from time to time.

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veganeats

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I start this review on a sad note- my book fell apart. No I didn’t love the book to death, though I do really love it. What did the book in was the binding was crappy construction. This makes me sad since this has NEVER happened to me before. Sure once or twice I might of had a 10 year old cookbook fall apart on me. But never a new one. What makes it more frustrating is that the publishing company has always made solid cookbooks.

And when I say the book was falling apart, I mean the pages were falling out of the glue binding. This usually happens over years, when the glue dries up. So I bought a binder and put each page into protector sleeves. I never really liked the covers so in the end I have the plus of having a sparkly and teal new book.

Am I saying YOUR future copy will fall apart? No. Probably not. As I mentioned before, I have gotten many books from the same publishing company that are very sturdy. But I probably will recommend investing in the hard cover version of the book. In the end it will last you longer anyways. With that gripe out of the way, please read all the GREAT and WONDERFUL things I have to say about Terry Hope Romero’s book.

Spoiler Alert: I think it is staple in a vegan bookshelf

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Woops! This is definitely an old drawing of me...but I still stand by it!

Woops! This is definitely an old drawing of me…but I still stand by it!

Crystal

Part of me feels as if the initial Sailor Moon craze has died down a bit – so I am even more sorry for the delay on these posts! The good news is, however, that I have plenty of material to catch up on. Again, the point of these segments is to simply look at the differences between each episode of the new release of Sailor Moon Crystal and the original adaptation of Sailor Moon. I originally wanted to go through and do EVERY episode…but then I remembered how long the original show ended up being. I am going to review the first arch at least and if I like where it is going I will go further with the reviews! But for now, we’ll start with episode 2…

In this episode we meet Sailor Mercury! It is very clear to me already that they are speeding the story up as opposed to the original, where you meet Mercury in episode 8. I actually don’t mind this so much. The viewer gets the idea that Sailor Moon, while the leader of the team, cannot defeat everything all on her own. It builds off the idea of togetherness and team work which is a really great model for girls (and even women) to see and put into practice. Not that every woman on earth needs to rely on someone else all the time, but we are all part of a team in one way or another, I think.

When Ami Mizuno is first introduced the only thing we know about her is that she has good grades. The best grades even, in the whole school. This leads to the other kids assuming that she has little to no friends because she is only ever seen studying, even on her lunch break during the day. When we catch up with Usagi and her friends they are chatting about how all Ami does is study, goes to cram school after school ends, and how her mother is a talented doctor. They all go on to assume that her family is loaded, puts her in the best cram school that money has to offer and that must be the reason for her expertise. Instead of making assumptions Usagi just listens and waits to figure out who Ami is for herself. This is a very interesting and good thing about her as a character. Most kids of that age (15-18) usually take the words of friends as fact, so for her to do some of her own investigation seems to make a strong trait. When they do eventually meet up, thanks to Luna who had been scouting her, Ami is immediately accepted by Usagi and they become fast friends. I also think that this is a good lesson to teach girls and women alike. I feel as though we’ve all been taught somehow to label each other or silently judge from afar, when in reality we could meet our new best friend if we’d just be open to it. 

 It was made very apparent that Luna’s “Secret Base” was actually in the basement or some hidden room in the arcade that Usagi would frequent. In this incarnation you just find her in some top secret facility. Again with the telling and not showing. It’s not the biggest deal in the world but I found it kind of fun to find out exactly where she ended up going to report back every night. 

The episode’s climax is Usagi trying to fight the Demon (controlled by Jadeite) to free Ami and the other kids who have been brainwashed at cram school. She can’t do it on her own and Ami transforms into Sailor Mercury! I think I said it in our last Sailor Moon post…but I REALLY dislike the cgi transformation sequence. I think it looks incredibly tacky and I don’t see the need for it. Yuck…but that’s besides the point. This episode was a good introduction for Ami and Sailor Mercury and it’s refreshing to see that we didn’t have to wait for seven episodes to pass before doing so.

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04-20-14

Earrings: Target | Shirt: Monteau via Modcloth | Skirt: Downeast via Modcloth | Tights: Target | Shoes: Rocket Dog via DSW

I think my blog should be called “The girl who shops at Modcloth” because it is scary how much stuff I get there. Sometimes I make delusional memories of buying my clothing from Ruche, but I seriously only made one order from there. Eek. Truth is that I like the shoppers that Modcloth has, they have great quality for whatever price range.

This outfit was for Easter dinner. I wanted something that was comfy since my husband and I were driving all the way to Long Island to visit my Grandma. To put in perspective how annoying this is, you have to know New Jersey and New York culture. Long Island is next to Manhattan (what people think of when they say New York City), and is easy to see on a map of New York state. The island is where Brooklyn and Queens are located, but if you hear someone from New York or New Jersey refer to Long Island, they mean everything east of New York City on the island. Part of the distancing of New York City and the Long Island name is probably because Long Island is so freakin long. I mean it is the same length as Connecticut state. That means it takes a long time to and from the island. Commuting to New York City from Long Island could take just as long as some of the suburbs in New Jersey. And it is one of most densely populated islands in the world, making everything congested. Probably half the time I spent in the car was just trying to get through the island. Luckily she lives in Amityville, which is less than halfway in the island. And yes, it is the town in The Amityville Horror.

04-20-14-0

But if Long Island cultural perspective is boring to you, maybe cookies and cauliflower won’t be. I had a feeling no one would of made me a vegetarian dish, so made I made a side dish of roasted cauliflower, chickpeas, and olives. I remember making this recipe in the past so I figured I would give it a go. I also knew I should make these yummy carrot cake cookies.

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