Vegan Made Easy

We were blessed this last week by having my dear friend Julie visit.  Oh we are always so happy when she shows up.  There is bags of yummy food and days of getting to visit.  I miss her so very much.  On this last trip Julie called and asked what food I would love to have in the goodie bags.  We requested fresh fruit and veggies.  While Dear Hubby is recovering he is unable to work so our budget has been cut in half.  The extra food helps.  Especially fresh food that we can not replace so easily.  Julie did not show up with a lil at all, no she showed up with 4 bags of fresh food.  We are in heaven.

This last week we have had some great dishes.  Spinach and strawberry salad was a wonderful treat.  Cucumbers with dill in greek yogurt made a crisp side dish with lil effort.  And the topper for us was getting to make our favorite drink of Cucumber Ginger Lemonade.  After we made the fresh squeezed lemonade with slices of cucumber and ginger we drained off the fruit.  This was used a second time to just soak in water for 24 hours.  So that gave us a gallon of flavored water that also was good on our tummys.

Now I was not going to let Julie leave empty handed.  Thankfully Merida Anderson helped me out.  I have the book Vegan Secret Supper that Merida created here.  When I pulled it out for Julie it was like giving her chocolate and coffee together.  We sat right down to enjoy the food porn (great photos of the recipes) as we discussed the dishes we wanted to try out.  Many of the items needed would not be available to me in my lil one horse town.  But Julie has Whole Foods close to her home and she can get a better selection.  We both so want to make the dark chocolate cake with avocado mint ice cream.  Doesn't it look yummy?

Check out some of the amazing dishes made that have been posted to Merida's blog.  I was amazed at the choices of meals available without having to dance through hoops to make.  Yes, some look like they would be ever so hard.  But with step by step instructions this cookbook helped me see how dishes could be accomplished.  I especially liked that when I needed something specially made, Merida was able to show me how to do that so it would be on hand for future meals.  This is often an important step overlooked in cookbooks.  Most of all Julie was thrilled to get to take the cookbook home with her to use for the community meals she participates in.  Thanks to Merida and Arsenal Pulp Press for sharing this book with me.