Vegan Cookbooks from the Library
Now that I’m back home, I’m rediscovering all of my old hobbies. I’d completely forgotten how awesome the library is. The Ottawa Library has every vegan and raw food cookbook you could ever want. New and old. And not just one copy at each branch; they’ve got something like 20 copies of the more popular titles. I went through the list of vegan cookbooks that were added to the catalogue during 2010 and submitted online requests for almost all of them. A lot of the books had long waiting lists, so I figured they’d come trickling in one at a time. Nope. I suddenly found my inbox full of emails with notifications that my requested books were ready for pickup. So many came in at the same time, I couldn’t fit them all in my book bag. Now I’ve got a whole stack and almost no time to read them (the lending period is three weeks but I’ve been super buys). From this stack I managed to make one recipe, African Yam Stew from Vegan Yum Yum (I’ll share a picture in an upcoming At Home post). And after skimming the recipe index, I decided to buy a copy of Vegan Brunch. If you know any good recipes from the cookbooks pictured above, please let me know right away…I think they’re due back on Tuesday.
So Many Vegan Cookbooks!!
Caribbean Vegan and Asian Fusion
As if the stack of vegan cookbooks from the library wasn’t enough to keep me busy and inspired with new recipe ideas, I’ve also added two new books to my cookbook collection. I won copies of Caribbean Vegan and Asian Fusion through giveaways on Seitan is my Motor and Vegan Appetite. I’ve only flipped through them at this point, but am inspired to have a Caribbean vegan dinner party.
Inter-Galactic Vegan Delights Cookbooklette
I also received a copy of the Inter-Galactic Vegan Delights cookbooklette, a collection of vegan recipes put together by Amey of Vegan Eats and Treats. She wrote out each recipe by hand and added adorable drawings. So cute!!!
Vegan Coupons & Deals
Reduced Produce at Loblaws
During our year of backpacking, we were on a super tight budget and had to be smart with our money. We always shopped around for the best deals when it came to booking flights or hostels, but not so much when it came to shopping for food. There were few cases when we had more than one supermarket to choose from. We couldn’t exactly review the flyer deals and then go from store to store looking for the best prices. Now that I’m back home, I’m rediscovering my obsession with getting good deals on food, household products and toiletries.
Avocado Coupon!
I’ve recently got back into collecting coupons and reading deal blogs. I get really excited about good coupons that help me save money on the things I need to buy. I’d like to share some links to Canadian coupons…
Canadian Vegan Coupons
- At save.ca, you can find coupons for So Nice, Ryza, Almond Fresh and So Good beverages. You have to register for an account, request the coupons you’re interested in, and then they send them to you in the mail.
- At The Healthy Shopper, you can print coupons for products by brands like So Delicious, Nature’s Path, Yogi Tea, Seventh Generation cleaning products and Tom’s of Main toothpaste.
- Through Smart Canucks, you can find links to printable coupons for Tofutti and Silk products.
- There’s currently a Groupon for $10 = $20 at Barnes and Nobel. I usually buy my vegan cookbooks from Chapters but found some of the Barnes and Nobel prices are lower and they ship to Canada for only $2.49 per book.
- Well.ca has free shipping to Canada and lots of vegan food, body care and household products in their store. First time buyers can use the coupon code 10freecoupon to save $10 when they spend $40. Some items are priced higher than what you’ll find in health food stores but a lot of the natural toothpastes are a good deal, as is lowest priced coconut oil.
- If you live in the US or visit sometimes, you should keep an eye on Facebook groups like Vegan Coupons and Vegan Groupon Deals, which also sometimes feature Canadian deals.
Happy deal hunting! Remember that every dollar counts. The more you can save on everyday food and household products, the more money you’ll have to spend on traveling ;) At least that’s how I think about it…
14 Comments »
I live by the tofu scramble recipe in Vegan Brunch. It’s a staple in my kitchen. The other cookbooks I’m not familiar with.
Thanks for those coupon tips! Mine would be: shop at Costco! They have great extra (extra!) firm tofu from Quebec and soy & almond milk tetra paks in bundles of 6. They also have a good selection of organic cereals & organic/GF crackers, and Fontaine Sante tabouli/bean salad/hummus. The odd time they’ll have a special product like regionally-crafted vegan sorbets and pierogies.
P.S. Costco also has a decent selection of raw nuts and energy bars -Lara bars in particular.
Babycakes NYC is my current go-to baking book. The biscuits are perfect and simple, and I give the pumpkin spice muffins high marks! One that I don’t see in your beautiful stack is Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero. The empanadas are so good, I’m inspired to try making my own tortillas. I was thinking that Vegan Brunch deserves another look… I’m putting it on hold at the San Diego library now. Thanks Jill!
wow this is awesome, thank you so much!!! :)
From vegan brunch, the tempeh bacon is awesome!! I also love the potato hash with beets-yum!
What fun! I love the library :-)
Buying in bulk and buying in season is the only tips I really have :) Man I wish I had all those books! I need more vegan cookbooks. I only have two :(
The sausages in Vegan Brunch are great. My husband liked them so much he actually learned to make them too, we’ve also fed them to non-Vegans who have been surprised at how good they are.
I’ll have to check out the cookbooks at my library as well as coupon deals around me. I do Groupons occasionally for a coffeehouse or restaurant but I could use some coupons for produce! (That really doesn’t sound like something that would be common in the US, sadly.)
You’ve got lots of great recipes at your fingertips there! “Urban Vegan” is a favorite of mine.
I’m a huge coupon gal. And groupon gal too. There was one for plum recently–score!
There are SO many good recipes in “Clean Food.” I love the maple mustard tempeh, spicy thai tempeh (try substituting walnuts for the cashews), LENTIL WALNUT PATE (THE best recipe ever), and SO many others. It’s a great cookbook because she uses interesting and healthy ingredients (mirin, kombu, ume plum vinegar) mixed with staples (greens, grains, tempeh/tofu or beans) and teaches you great ways to mix up your same weekly shopping list.
This is an awesome discount site:
http://ethicaldeal.com/ottawa
They have ones for different Canadian cities and the deals are actually pretty good, but are only available for a limited time. The point is to promote local green companies. It’s a great concept :)
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