Last week was hectic as the TDs had spring break and as usual, nothing to do. So, TG and I had to find them things to do, not always things they find fun to do, but fill the void. For example, clean the dog room, a necessary evil, and one the dogs do appreciate. Help with raking the leaves and cleaning the yard up. Carrying the branches away, after I trim the trees. But, it wasn’t all work and no play, they went to the library a few times and rented movies. They love dog movies, actually any Disney animal movie ever made. Played tennis, went ice skating and in return for all their hard work, scored some new shoes that they really needed.
Enough blah, blah, blah. On to the St Patty’s day feast. The TDs are not familiar with St. Patty’s Day or Irish food. So Tuesday, I thought it would be fun to try out a few recipes. I noticed SusanV from the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen and author of many of my favorite cookbooks, had a post about Colcannon puffs and at the bottom of her post had listed some more Irish dishes from previous posts. This one in particular I thought would be fitting for the TDs. Vegan corned beef and cabbage with roasted red potatoes. Please keep in mind the TDs helped in the preparation of this dish, so the 2 inch carrots are not two inches but closer to three. I used soy curls reconstituted in not beef stock for the “beef”. The roasted red pototatoes were very easy to prepare and were great dipped in horseradish sauce! The TDs and TG loved it!
Vegan Corned Beef and Cabbage. I highly recommend it!
Instead of the soda bread she listed, I googled and found this recipe from msnbc.com, the Today show did a special on what “real” Irish soda bread is. Long story short, at the bottom of the article, epicuriuos.com listed three recipes and I chose “Noreen Kinney’s Irish Soda Bread” . I must say what attracted me to this recipe, was the fact that it had wheat bran, oat bran and sunflower seeds, flax seeds, untoasted wheat germ plus it used some whole wheat flour. Thus, raising it above the usual white flour recipes. I did modify this recipe some what and veganized it as well. I used 1 cup of whole wheat and 1 3/4 cups of spelt four instead of white flour. I used Earth Balance vegan buttery sticks , instead of butter, Ener-G egg replacer the large egg (I used the amount for 2 eggs). This brought the volume to exactly 2 cups (you will understand when you read the recipe). Instead of buttermilk, I used rice enriched milk 1 3/4 cups plus 2 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar, stirred well and let sit for 5 min or so. The last modification was the use of sucanant instead of the regular sugar. This bread is very wet and sticky; I used alot of flour to shape and manipulate it onto the baking sheet. But, it came out of the oven looking very rustic and smelling wonderful!
Krunsdogs, modified Noreen Kinney's Irish Soda Bread.
And another gratuitous shot of the bread.
Here it is again!
It is reallllly goooood! You must try it.
Again, I apologize for being so tardy.
Enjoy cooking and the food you create!
