Half Price Books, Blueberry Crumb Muffins, Crafty Super Slab

I finally tried selling to Half Price Books. I took in nine books and a bunch of magazines. They took everything and gave me $10 plus a 10% off my next purchase coupon. I was happy with the $10 because I didn’t have much into the books, I was finished with them, and I didn’t have any luck selling them online (due to market saturation). All of the magazines I traded in didn’t cost me much to begin with either…thanks to cheap subscriptions, I only had 25¢ or less into each issue. I’ll see how it goes next time I sell to them.

We used the $10 and 10% coupon to buy two books. Rob found an interesting car book called The Cobra in the Barn. It’s about people finding antique cars in unique places. While Rob was reading the book, he was stunned to see one of the stories was written by my dad’s friend. We knew it was my dad’s friend because the name matched, it was about Detroit, and the car pictured was the same car he used to store in my relative’s garage. What a small world!

I found a cookbook called Extending the Table by Joetta Handrich Schlabach which contains “recipes and stories of people from Argentina to Zambia in the spirit of More With Less.” You might remember More With Less was the Mennonite book I got for free after coupon earlier this year at an estate sale. I was thrilled to find a companion book. The book is from 1991 and I didn’t even know it existed. HPB must have had the book for a long time because it was marked down several times…starting at $10.98 and all the way down to $3.98. The back of the book has a $22 price sticker from a Ten Thousand Villages store!

I made some Blueberry Crumb Muffins but they’re still a work in progress. I veganized the recipe from the blueberry cookbook I bought at one of the library sales. I didn’t like the crumb topping but Rob did. They also need more blueberries and a few other tweaks. I’m going to try again this weekend. The muffins themselves had a great texture….they were sturdy and held together well without being tough or chewy. The recipe is a good starting point though. I’ll try to post the recipe once I get them perfected. I need to go to Trader Joes this weekend and get some more frozen blueberries. I’m a big fan of TJ’s frozen fruits and veggies.

And yet another shout-out for Udandi. She told me about the Provo Craft’s Super Slabs that can be found at Michaels. The super slabs contain a wonderful assortment of 12″ x 12″ crafty paper and cardstock, as well as die cuts and stickers. The paper has a lot of cool retro designs and colors. I bought the Super Slab #10 because it had some nifty dragonfly paper. The Super Slabs retail for $20 but I used a 40% off coupon so it was only $12 plus tax. Cool! I also didn’t find it at the first Michaels I went to but the second one had a bunch of them.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!!

Crafty Pencil Holder, Tomatillo Soup, and Cornbread

I recently repurposed a tea tin into a pencil holder. I used the fabric (sheet set) that I picked up earlier in the month on clearance at Target. It just so happens that the tea was from Target too! To remove the tea smell from the tin, I filled the tin with baking soda and let it sit for a day before washing and drying it thoroughly

Before & After:

All it took was some scissors, spray adhesive, and a little bit of tape to help position the fabric. I also used a piece of cut-to-fit peel and stick felt on the bottom. That way I know the tin won’t scratch any surface I put it on and it covers up the overlapping fabric edges on the bottom.

If you like crafty projects and thrifty posts, be sure to check out Udandi & The Craft of Money. She recently made a cool pencil holder too but out of a band-aid tin. Her “Link Dump” post has links to some great projects as well. I have my eye on the Matchbook Notebook tutorial link. I love to keep matchbook notebooks in my purse to write down what I spent at the sales (garage/estate/library). I like to keep track.

Moving on to food…I adapted a recipe from the Good Housekeeping Favorite Recipes – Vegetarian Meals Cookbook: White Bean and Tomatillo Chili. I decided to go with a more soup like texture and chose not to mash the beans.

The soup was really good. It still could stand to be spicier but that’s easily fixed. The soup is also good with tortilla chips crumbled over the top. The best way to described the taste is it’s a bit like Salsa Verde but in soup form.

I also made some cornbread in my mini-loaf pan. I also have a corncob cast iron pan but it’s currently packed away in my parent’s basement. My all time favorite cornbread recipe can be found in The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. I’ve tried a bunch of cornbread recipes but that is the one I go back to over and over again.

Mini Cornbread Loaves:

Split Cornbread Loaf…the texture is great, not too dense:

Tomatillo Soup

Recipe adapted from Good Housekeeping Favorite Recipes – Vegetarian Meals Cookbook

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 large onion, sliced thin
4 jalapeno peppers, sliced in thin rounds (use less for a milder soup)
2 heaping teaspoons ground cumin
1 heaping teaspoon ground coriander
Green Tabasco Sauce to taste
1 pound tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and chopped
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 cups vegetable broth
2 cans chopped green chiles, drained
1 cup water
2 15-oz. cans Cannelli Beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions:

1. Heat oil over medium heat in a 10-inch skillet. Add garlic, onion, jalapenos, cumin, and coriander. Cook, stirring often until onions are lightly golden, about 7 – 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in 5- to 6-quart pot, combine tomatillos, sea salt, sugar, vegetable broth, green chilies, Green Tabasco sauce, and water. Heat to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to low. Stir in the onion mixture and cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

3. Stir in beans and cilantro until beans are heated through.

Lavender Cookies w/ Rose Water Icing, Tea, and Thrifty Finds

I made some delightful cookies this week. I veganized The Spice House’s recipe for Victorian Lavender Cookies with Rose Water Icing. This is the perfect cookie to enjoy with a cup of tea. Rob loved the cookies too and said I should definitely make them again. I even snitched a cookie before they were cooled and drizzled with icing….so with or without icing, the cookies were delicious.

As for the tea we had with the cookies, it came directly from China….literally. At Rob’s work, one of the employees from the China division is in town. He brought some lovely tea with him and Rob was able to bring some home for me to try. Yay! Rob said most of the labels were in Chinese so he didn’t get the proper tea names. The tea on the left is some sort of Rose Tea and on the right is Green Jasmine Tea. I really enjoyed both teas.

Now for some more thrifty book finds from the library sales. Usually I never find any decent computer books but this time I found five Wrox ASP.NET (v 1.0) books. The price paid? Only $2.50 for all five books. Wooo Hooo!!! You may or may not know this but I have separate degrees in both Accounting and Computer Information Systems.

Rob spotted the complete set of 16 Mechanix Illustrated Books from 1961. We love books like this because of all the terrific vintage projects in them. Hardcover books were $1 each so the whole set was only $16. The books are in great shape and didn’t have any weird smells.

Just flipping through the books I found a lot of cool retro projects. Here’s one of my favorites:

I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend!!!

Pizza Bagels Part 2, Kiwi Sorbet, Thrifty Finds

Wow, I’m really getting a lot of blog mileage with the pizza bagels this week. We had four bagels left to use up so I made them again. This time, I topped them with the Vegan Gourmet Monterey Jack Cheeze, soysage, onions, and fresh jalapeno slices. They were very tasty. Rob dropped his pizza bagel while eating it and got a huge pizza sauce stain on his clean shirt. Why am I telling you this? Because for once, it wasn’t me! Just wanted it noted for the record

Here’s a repeat of one our favorite desserts in the spring and summer – Rachel’s Kiwi Sorbet from her Coconut Lime Blog. Caputo’s had a great deal on kiwis…a container with just over 2 lbs. for only $1.99.

Here are some of the books I picked up this past weekend at two different library book sales. I love library book sales because the prices are usually great and the proceeds benefit the Friends of the Library. Both sales I went to had the same pricing structure….softcovers were 50¢ each and hardcovers were $1 unless otherwise marked. Those are my kind of prices! I only spent $13 for 20 books!!!

Rob spotted the Zabars book. Yay! I love going to Zabars when I visit NYC. I’ve never seen the Culinary Arts Chinese Recipes for the Food Processor book before. It’s from 1978. The book without writing on the front (i.e. missing the dust jacket) is a neat cookbook called San Francisco Firehouse Favorites from 1965.

Can you believe I didn’t own Diet for a Small Planet? Neither can I! LOL. I was really excited to find two different Sourdough Cookbooks. The booklet on the far left in the bottom row has a nifty title: The Impoverished Students’ Book of Cookery, Drinkery, & House Keepery (1967).

On the bottom row, the book on the far left is from The St. Louis Art Museum. I’ve been there before and it’s a really nice museum. The Metro Chicago Almanac is from 1991 so some of the information is outdated. However, it does have a wealth of Chicago history which I enjoy learning about.

The Furniture You Can Make book is from 1971. It has a lot of cool retro furniture projects. Unfortunately, our move coupled with the lack of space in the rental have put our household projects on hold until we can buy here. Hopefully our Michigan place will sell soon. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

I’ll post some more of my thrifty book finds from the library book sales in my next post.

Hope you have a lovely day

Sweet Tomatoes, Pizza Bagels, More Elk Pics

Sweet Tomatoes is a chain restaurant with three locations in Chicago’s suburbs. For vegans, they offer a huge salad bar, soup, baked potatoes, and fresh fruit for dessert. The salad bar is huge and has toppings galore. Usually there are one or two vegetarian soups and you can always ask an employee about ingredients to see if they are vegan (they have a book they can check that lists ingredients). Most of the vegetarian soups are vegan but always check first. Lately, they’ve been testing out vegan soups to see if they should add them to the menu. They are even labeled vegan which is not something you see very often in a chain restaurant! This time the vegan soup was Moroccan Garbanzo Bean and Lentil Soup. It was delicious and I added some crushed red pepper to mine for a little bit of a kick. There are feedback cards next to soups they are testing so I always fill them out and thank them for offering vegan soups. For dessert, we had fresh pineapple slices which were sweet and juicy. They often have coupons in the paper so lunch is only $6.69 per person and it’s all-you-can eat. Remember to arrive hungry so you can get your monies worth.

My giant salad had romaine lettuce, baby spinach, cucumbers, red onion, green cabbage, purple cabbage, celery, carrots, jicama, banana squash, radish, scallions, mushrooms, green pepper, zucchini slices, chickpeas, broccoli, cauliflower, and pepperoncini peppers. I don’t really like salad dressings so I topped mine with lots of sunflower seeds and toasted pumpkin seeds. Yum!

Here’s the Moroccan Garbanzo Bean and Lentil Soup:

We stopped and get some bagels from The Great American Bagel because I had a coupon. They’re bread-like bagels but work perfectly for pizza bagels. I’m still on the look-out for traditional bagels but I’d use these bagels again for pizza bagels. I’m also on the look-out for Tofutti Cheeze around here. I think I’m going to have to see if some place will order it for me. I used the Vegan Gourmet Cheeze this time. I also topped the pizza bagels with fresh tomato slices and stuck them back under the broiler for another minute. The herbs on top are the Little Italy NYC Style Herbs I picked up at the Spice House in Evanston, IL.

Pizza Bagels:

We also stopped by the Elk Conservation area again. The elk were right up by the fence and it was neat to see them up close. The first two pictures were taken between the chain link fence openings for an unobstructed view.

Elk:

Awww, she’s so cute:

Look at those antlers:

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. It was bright, sunny, and around 50 degrees. This is a pretty picture I took at one of the Forest Preserves. The sunlight was reflecting off the ice that hadn’t melted yet.

Hope you have a fantastic day.