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Posts Tagged ‘St. Patty’s Day’

St. Patrick’s Day Round-Up

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

St. Patrick’s Day is next week. Look at me being all on top of this holiday thing!

I’m not sure how St. Patty’s Day will be without Boston’s… charm. Toowoomba is just a tad bit smaller. Just a little bit. And the number of Irish people is just a wee bit smaller.  I suspect I will have a much quieter St. Patrick’s Day than I have the past few years.

Either way, here are a few recipes from the past 2 years that I’ve had success with. Some are traditional and some are just green. With it being hotter here, I don’t think I will be breaking out the stew. Those Guinness-glazed potatoes are definitely a possibility, though!

I can’t believe I don’t have any desserts!!! I’ll definitely have to work on that this week.

cornbeef

Breakfast:

Thin Mint Donuts

Green Chocolate Mint Smoothie

Green Monstah Smoothie

Meal and sides:

Vegan Corned Beef

Vegan Guinness Stew

Vegan Irish Stew

Guiness Glazed Potatoes and Roasted Carrots and Brussel Sprouts

Beer Fries

Guiness Beer Bread

Vegan Irish Cream

 

irishcream1

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Vegan Guinness Stew

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , on March 12, 2013| 2 Comments »


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St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner. Tis the season to eat all the irish food we avoid the rest of the year (cause seriously? the irish just dont have the best food), celebrate our 1/64th bit of irish blood and drink copious amounts of beer until we pass out. Oh, St. Patty’s really brings out the best in people!

With that said, I’m totally jumping on that bandwagon and partaking in all the above. Except maybe the drinking copious amounts of beer. Because holding my liquor is not a trait I inherited from my irish ancestors. Lightweights Representin’!

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Anyway, here are a few St. Patty’s day recipes from last year:  Irish Cream, Corned Beef and guinness-glazed  potatoes. I think I am most looking forward to sauteing up those guinness-glazed potatoes. SO yummy. And here are some recipes that may not be typical St. Patty’s day grub but they fit the theme: green monster smoothy, for a nutritional, green, kick to your morning; spinach artichoke dip, a green appetizer for a more casual get together; vegan irish stew, which I totally forgot I had on the blog!; and how about one more? Beer fries.

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Annnd, here is a new one!

Vegan Guinness Stew
from The Curvy Carrot
6ish large servings

  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 large onions, peeled and chopped
  • 6 small celery stalks, chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • 16 ounces (1 lb) button mushrooms, cleaned, de-stemmed, and sliced
  • 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • One 11.2-ounce bottle of Guinness Stout*
  • 4-5 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • 3 lb (about 3-4 large) Russet potatoes, peeled and chopped
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 4 cups of Vegetable Stock
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt

*according to Barnivore, Guinness extra stout from North America is vegan.

1.  Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat until shimmering.

2. Add the onion, celery, and about 1/4 of the mushrooms, stirring frequently until softened, about 10 minutes.

3. Add the flour to the mixture and stir to coat and cook for another 2 minutes.

4. Carefully pour the bottle of Guinness over the mixture, and stir to scrape up any browned bits.

5. Add the remaining vegetables and ingredients and bring the mixture to a boil.

6. Decrease the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for about 45 minutes.

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This is super hearty and is perfect served with a thick, warm slice of beer bread. Beer bread you say? Well…you’ll just have to come back tomorrow and get that recipe!

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Vegan “Corned Beef”

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2012| 8 Comments »

Guys! I made my own corned beef. I’m so excited! This is my first venture into the world of making my own meat substitutes and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.
Before I go on, I just have to put a little disclaimer out there. A few days ago, a friend and I were arguing the merits of fake meat. He is a die hard carnivore and just did not understand the purpose of non-meat “meats”. His argument was, “you gave up meat. Why are you eating something that now taste like meat?” and “it’s not chicken, so it shouldn’t me called chicken”. Touche, my dear, touche.
I like to think of fake meats as the Epcot of foods. When you go to Epcot Germany, you aren’t going for an  authentic German experience, are you? No. You are going for the idea of Germany. You get to partake in the German experience without having to go to a foreign country, with a foreign language and foreign people. With fake meat, you get the idea of meat without the cruelty of animal slaughter/torture, chemicals and bad health effects. Cool, right?
Now with that in mind, I try not to eat fake meat often. They are great for the transitional process from meat eater to non-meat eater but I like to reserve them for special occasions. They are a processed food and overall, I try not to eat too many of those. It’s just harder to monitor what you are eating (unless you make it from scratch, of course). There tends to be more chemicals and such so I keep them to a minimum. After all,  Epcot wouldn’t be fun if you visited fake Germany everyday, would it? No. So, you save Epcot for vacations. And so I save fake meats for special occasions too, occasions where nothing else seems to work. Like, St. Patrick’s Day!
Mush together until strands of gluten form

Mush together until strands of gluten form

Vegan “Corn Beef”
from The Domestic Vegan

Dry Ingredients:

  • 2 c. vital wheat gluten
  • ½ c. nutritional yeast
  • 2 Tbsp. vegetarian beef broth powder (I could not find this at Whole Foods so I added an additional 1/2 tsp of salt, as Domestic Vegan suggested)
  • 2 Tbsp. onion powder
  • 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
  • 1 Tbsp. fennel seeds (ground)*
  • 1 Tbsp. caraway seeds (ground)*
  • 4 juniper berries (ground)**
  • 2½ tsp. sea salt
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1 tsp. dried mustard
  • ½ tsp. cloves
  • ½ tsp. allspice

Wet Ingredients:

  • 1 c. + 2 Tbsp. vegetable broth
  • 2 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 Tbsp. liquid smoke (hickory flavor)
  • 1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp. maple syrup
  • 1 Tbsp. tamari or Braggs

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and stir to combine.  Knead with your hands for a couple minutes, until everything is well combined & strands of gluten start to form.

Fill a large pot with about 12 cups of water, and add 2 bay leaves & 1 Tbsp. of whole juniper berries.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat to keep the water simmering.  (The original recipe said you can throw some beer or red wine into the water. My dad had some left over red wine so I added 10 cups of waters and 2 cups of red wine)

On a clean surface, shape the seitan into an oval (about 8” by 5” with a 1” thickness).  Don’t stress over the size.  If it’s roughly the size & shape of a roast, you’re good.   Wrap the seitan in a double-layer of cheesecloth, and roll the ends like a Tootsie Roll (not too tight, though; the roast will expand a bit while cooking).  Secure with string (or just tie the ends in a tight knot if you have enough fabric, which is what I did).

Place the corned seitan roast in the simmering water.  Cover and simmer on medium-low heat for 1 hour, turning the roast a couple times during the cooking process to ensure even cooking.

When done, remove the seitan from the pot (I use tongs to do this), and allow to rest/cool on a plate or cutting board for about 10 minutes.  When cool enough to handle, unwrap the cheesecloth.

 

My pseudo-ground up spices

My pseudo-ground up spices

* I could not find ground fennel seed, caraway seed or rosemary so I ground them myself using a combination of a mini food processor and running a super sharp knife through them. Neither of these methods were particularly efficient. I would recommend a mortar and pestle if you have one or even a salt and pepper grinder. Because the spices are now freshly ground and therefore release a stronger flavor, I would recommend cutting them down a bit to 1/2 TBS  or preparing them the night before to give them a chance to mellow out. I didn’t do this and my roast was very strongly spiced.

** I could not find juniper berries anywhere and no one had even heard of them when I asked about them. If they are popular in regular corn beef, it’s possible that they will pop up this week in grocery stores but I subbed in rosemary where ever the recipe called for juniper berry. I used 1 tsp of rosemary for every 2 berries, as recommended by Ehow.

This corned beef was SO easy to whip together. Though the ingredients list is long, it goes together pretty quickly. The most tedious process was grinding my own spices and if you have them already ground, whether the came like that or you did them the night before, this will speed up the preparation process.

Tune in tomorrow, where I’ll plate this up for you with some yummy, traditional-inspired St. Patty’s day vegetables.  Yum!

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Homemade Irish Cream

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , on March 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

As I mentioned last week, I was feeling kind of sick and in a bit of a cooking funk after my two messed up recipes. As a result, I avoided the kitchen. I was eating raw carrots, cucumbers and avocados (I told you I’m obsessed!) with hummus for lunch, heating up left overs for dinner and overall, not doing a lot of things that make for good Wicked Vegan posts.

But this weekend, oh…this weekend was different. Why? Because St. Patty’s Day is this week! Sometimes you just need a little inspiration to get you back in the kitchen and that is exactly what St. Patrick’s Day has done for me. I was a cooking fool this weekend and as a result, I have a week full of yummy Ireland inspired meals for you!

First, let’s start with homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream. What better way to start my week of Irish inspired food than by starting with an Irish drink, which you can drink straight up on the rocks or use in a myriad of recipes. When my family and I went to Ireland in 2007, I had a nightcap of Bailey’s almost every evening I was there. It’s had a special place in my heart since then.

Homemade Vegan Irish Cream Original Flavor
inspired by cupcakeproject.com (I’m sorry I’m not linking to that page but every time I try to check out this recipe, it allows me to scroll for 5 seconds and then it freezes on me. It took me several times, strategiclly scrolling in those 5 seconds, to get the non-vegan recipe for me to convert.)

1 C soy cream

14 oz sweetened condensed milk (I used vanilla almond milk)*

1 C- 1 2/3 C Irish whiskey (I used Jameson’s)**

1 t instant coffee

2 T melted vegan chocolate (the original recipe called for Hersey’s syrup but I wasn’t feeling the chemicals in Hersey’s syrup so I just melted some vegan chocolate chip with a little vegetable shortening to thin it out)

1 t vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a blender and set on high speed for 30 seconds.

Bottle in a tightly sealed container and refrigerate. Shake before using.

* I used almond milk for my condensed milk, which I had never done before. The result was a very strong almond after taste, which you can pick up in the finished Irish Cream. This isn’t bad, and the original recipe even called for 1 tsp of almond extract, but it definitely is a difference between the vegan version and the original Bailey’s. As you read this, I have soy milk condensing in my slow cooker and if you check back tomorrow, I will let you know how that comes out.

** Um, sooo…the original recipe on cupcakeproject.com recommended 1 2/3 C of whiskey but, um, well… I’m a huge lightweight. There! I said it! I’m part irish and I’m a lightweight. *sigh* it’s not something I’m proud of people. But, because of this, I only put 1 C of whiskey into my irish cream, and not the full 1 2/3 C. You can use your own discretion when adding the booze. Also, in case you were curious, Jameson is vegan friendly. That website is great for any alcohol/vegan questions you may have.

Now, seeing as I have been DYING to make this recipe for about 2 months, when I finally had a chance, I couldn’t resist making 2 batches. I became obsessed with Chocolate Mint Bailey’s in December when my friend, Melinda, bought me a bottle as a Thank You gift. I think I had a glass every evening, which was the perfect way to end some seriously stressful work days. I knew that I had to attempt the Chocolate Mint version, as well as the original.

 Homemade Vegan Chocolate Peppermint Irish Cream 

inspired by cupcakeproject.com 

1 C soy cream

14 oz sweetened condensed chocolate milk (I used half chocolate almond milk and half dark chocolate almond milk)

1 C- 1 2/3 C Irish whiskey (I used Jameson’s)

1 t instant coffee

3 T melted vegan chocolate (the original recipe called for Hersey’s syrup but I wasn’t feeling the chemicals in Hersey’s syrup so I just melted some vegan chocolate chip with a little vegetable shortening to thin it out)

1 t peppermint extrant

Combine all ingredients in a blender and set on high speed for 30 seconds. The notes above regarding the almond milk and whiskey, obviously apply here too

Aww, perfect way to start off our week long celebration of Ireland. Cheers!

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