dinner with the dukes - irish style

Thank you all so much for your suggestions on what to do for this month's cooking challenge! Everyone suggested doing something in honor of St. Patrick's Day (why didn't I think of that?!) so that is what we did.

Thank you.

Dinner was delicious!

Let's back up a bit...

Before our dear friends up and left Iowa for the Great Great North, we used to head over to their place on St. Patrick's Day for a traditional meal of corned beef, cabbage, steamed potatoes, Guinness, Irish whiskey....among other tasty things. It was at one of these meals that I tasted real corned beef (not the nastiness that comes in a vacuumed packed package) for the first time and ate cabbage that I was blown by the awesomeness of it (or maybe it was just all the butter??)!

But alas, like I said - they ditched us for bigger, better and colder things.

So now that they've been replaced...


I took it into my own hands and began researching traditional Irish cuisine. Did you know that finding traditional Irish foods that are vegan is really difficult? Nah - I wasn't going to inflict an entirely vegan meal on the husband again (he has been such a good sport lately - eating my vegan meatloaf and vegan mac 'n cheese), but I did want to make one component of the meal vegetarian, if not vegan, for me.

On the menu::

• Irish Beef Stew - inspired by this recipe on epicurious
• Vegan Irish Beef Stew - inspired by care2
• Amped Up and Loaded Colcannon - inspired by Tyler Florence, Oh She Glows and various other sites
• Vegan Irish Soda Bread - adapted from VegNews
• Brownies frosted with Bailey's Irish Cream - made by Diana

I began preparing the meal around Noon and started with the colcannon. This is a dish that I'd never heard of before, but after looking at a few sites to see different takes on this traditional dish, just kind of did my own thing.

Colcannon



In the mix:

• 3 pound red potatoes - scrubbed and quartered
• 3 cloves garlic - peeled and smashed
• 2 leeks - rinsed well and diced
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 head small cabbage - sliced into thin strips
• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (or other milk)
• 2 cans navy beans - rinsed
• 2 T olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Place potatoes in a large pot, add cold water until just covered and boil until softened.

In a large saute pan over medium heat, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and then add leeks and garlic. Saute until soft. When done, remove from heat and set aside until ready to use.

Place sliced cabbage in a sauce pan, cover with cold water and bring to a boil. Simmer until softened (about 5-10 minutes...I didn't time this). When done, remove to a cutting board and chop into smaller pieces.

In a food processor, puree the navy beans until mostly smooth. I had to add a few tablespoons of almond milk to help this process along, however, I was using my mini processor as my big one finally broke last week. Yes, I cried a little.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add potatoes, leeks, cabbage, navy beans and remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix until combined. Slowly add 1 cup of almond milk until the potatoes are as chunky or creamy as you'd like.  Add additional almond milk as necessary.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

I then spread the colcannon into a casserole pan and stored in the fridge until about an hour before we were ready to eat.  I then heated it in a 375* oven.

(Colcannon traditionally calls for ham, heavy cream, loads of butter and no beans...just in case you want to make it the real way).

Irish Beef Stew and Irish Vegan Stew



The stews that I was planning on making were fairly similar, so as I was prepping I combined as many steps as possible and then spilt items up as needed for each stew.  I began by prepping the veggies.

In the mix (both stews)::

• Olive oil
• 8 cloves garlic - peeled and smashed
• 3 - 8 ounce packages slice button mushrooms
• 2 leeks - rinsed well and sliced into rounds
• 1 large onion - chopped
• 8 carrots - peeled and diced large
• 4 parsnips - peeled and diced large
• 3 turnips - peeled and quartered
• 6 celery ribs - rinsed and roughly chopped

For the beef stew::

• 1.15 beef arm roast - cut into 1x1 inch chunks
• flour for dredging
• 4 cups beef stock
• 1 cup Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout
• 1 cup red wine (I used The Naked Grape's Pinot Noir)
• 3 T tomato paste
• 1 T brown sugar
• 2 T worcestershire sauce
• 2 t dried thyme
• 2 bay leaves

For the vegan stew::

• 2 cups veggie stock
• 1/2 cup Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout
• 1/2 cup ride wine (same as beef stew)
• 2 T tomato paste
• 1/2 T brown sugar
• 1 t dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf

In a large saute pan, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add 2 cloves garlic and mushrooms - saute until mushrooms release their juices. Remove mushrooms and juices to a bowl. Set aside.

In the same pan, add another swirl of olive oil, add leeks, onion and 4 remaining cloves garlic and saute until soft. Remove to another bowl and set aside.

In the same pan, add another swirl of olive oil, add carrots, parsnips, turnips, and celery. Saute for 20 minutes or until beginning to turn golden brown. Remove from pan and set aside.

For the beef stew - Again in the same pan, add a generous pour of olive or canola oil (about 1-2 tablespoons) and brown the beef (that has been lightly dredged in flour) on all sides.  If the pan is not too crusty and gross like mine was, add the beef stock, beer, wine, tomato paste, brown sugar, worcestershire sauce, thyme and bay leaves. Bring to a boil and then simmer (covered) for 1 hour. If your pan is too crusty (I know the brown crusty bits are good, but mine were a little too brown), remove beef to a large stock pot, add ingredients as mentioned above and simmer 1 hour.

For the vegan stew - Into a medium sized pot, add 1 cup of the leek/onion mixture, 1 1/2 cups of the mushrooms (with about 3 tablespoons of their juices), 3 cups of the carrot/parsnip/turnip mixture and the remaining ingredients (stock, beer, wine, sugar, tomato paste, thyme and bay leaf).

About an hour before ready to eat, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let cook for one hour, or until vegetables are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

For the beef stew - After the meat has simmer for one hour, add the remaining vegetables not used for the vegan stew and simmer one more hour, or until the vegetables are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

(I realize this is a lot of steps and I am sure some of them could be combined (like sautéing the mushrooms, leeks, onions and veggies at the same time), but I didn't do it that way....so yeah.)


Vegan Irish Soda Bread




I followed this recipe to the T, well kind of - I made the following substitutions:

• I used 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup bread flour and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• I subbed almond milk for soy milk
• I added 1 tablespoons caraway seeds

Chocolate Brownies with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting



In the mix::

• Not a clue - except I do know the frosting was a mix of Bailey's Irish Cream and white chocolate.

So that took forever...are you wondering how everything turned out?

Colcannon - John and Diana loved eating the mix of potatoes, leeks and cabbage! Apparently this is very traditional of England as well (they lived there for two years).

After John took a few bits, I confessed that there were pureed beans in there (I knew he wasn't a fan of beans). I was afraid he might run to the bathroom, but he was a fan! As long as he can't feel the texture, beans are a-okay.

Irish Beef Stew - this got six thumbs up, way up.  I admit, I did taste of chunk of the meat and it was sooooo good!  The flavor was spot on (thanks to the beer and wine!) and it was perfectly tender.

Oh and I should add that Irish stew traditionally has potatoes in the mix, but as you can see from the photos above, we plopped a generous portion of the colcannon into our stew which took care of the potatoes aspect.

Irish Vegan Stew - can not wait to eat the leftovers!

Vegan Irish Soad Bread - who knew raisins and caraway seeds was a good combination?  This was especially good this morning toasted and topped with some peanut butter.

Brownies - yum. Nic was so excited for dessert which is very rare, that he dug in before the rest of us were even done with dinner!  We all went back for seconds.

The rest of the night involved copious amounts of adult beverages (beer for the boys and too many hard ciders for us girls - I forgot how good hard cider is! It is so good it is dangerous!) and a few rounds of "Smart-Ass" a trivia game.







We also wowed our guests with lame cat tricks...because we are cool like that.  Our cat loves to fetch bottle caps and Nic made the mistake of pulling out his favorite (oh yes, he has a favorite) and we were forced to keep throwing it for him the rest of the evening.



Twas another fun night with the Dukes! We are already planning our April get together, which I think will feature authentic Mexican dishes.  Did you know Diana's mom is a famous runner from Mexico?? :)



Maia clearly had an enjoyable night.