Irish Vegan Menu for St Patricks Day

I know St Patrick's Day has passed us by now, but I am posting this for future inspiration. 

For starter Irish-Indian Spiked Milligan Soup. In memory of the world premier Irish-Indian, a root vegetable soup spiked with curried spices.

Served with home-made granary croutons in the shape of shamrocks 

The main St Paddy's Shepherds Pie was plated up like an Irish flag , not that dissimilar from my Irish Vegetarian Plate see this link. 

To the left green sauteed cabbage, in the centre the white mash cottage pie in the centre, to the right orange Chantenay carrots. Oh I did make some shamrock centre with parsley, but upon the baking in the oven, it kinda got lost a little.

Unlike my Welsh Red Dragon Burgers which are made from sweet potatoes, red hot chilli flakes and minced jalapenos, the 'Maggie May' Burger was one of my plainer versions packed with the orange glow of carrots, sliced french green beans and potato chunks, so you may want to have a dash of mustard to heat it up. 

For cake there was Orange Carrot Cake and Father Teds Chocolate Mint Cakes topped with shamrock, both suitable for those following a vegan diet.

Spiked Milligan Soup for St Patricks Days

I hummed at what to call this soup which was specially made for my St Patricks Vegetarian menu.  I eventually had decided on Indian-Irish soup, but my husband a huge Spike Milligan fan called it 'Milligan soup'. 

 Well why not?

So in memory of the world premier Irish-Indian, a root vegetable soup spiked with curried spices. 

 I wonder what Mr Spike Milligan would have thought of it. 

For those who opted for the starter of soup.  A bowl was accompanied with chunky home-made shamrock shaped granary croutons. 

 I am sharing a bowl of this soup with Deb of Kahakai Kitchen for this week’s Souper (Soup, Salad and Sammies) Sundays and One Ingredient hosted this month by Laura of How to Cook Good Food and Nazima of Franglais Kitchen who are featuring my favourite ingredient chilli this month. .

Spike Milligan Soup for St Patricks Day 
Serves 4 - 6
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely sliced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 large potato, peeled and diced
1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes
1 teaspoon Curry Powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 pints vegetable stock, made with 1 teaspoon bouillon powder
Salt to taste
40g fresh coriander leaves and stalks, minced
Method
Heat the oil in a pan, fry the onions until soft. Add the vegetables and spices and cook over gentle head until it begins to soften a little.  Then pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer until the vegetables are tender. Stir in the minced coriander and add salt to taste, simmer until the coriander begins to wilt. Tweak seasoning and serve.  

Vegan Chocolate Mint Cake for St Patricks Day

A rather quick blog post to wish my readers, especially those of Irish ancestry and heritage a Happy St Patricks Day.

I had originally planned to make Chocolate and Guinness Cake, but as some of you may know, Guinness is neither vegan or vegetarian as it uses isinglass (fish bladder) in the filtering process. I think there are other alternatives for both vegans and vegetarians, but I have to admit I have not done my research in this area, so if anyone knows of a suitable alternative for future baking, please do let me know.  Anyway, instead I decided to make a vegan Chocolate Cake flavoured with mint syrup. 

I had some green ready to roll icing left over from Christmas (to top my mince pies with holly leaves), so a couple of days ago  I used the last of it to decorate these cake to make them more appropriate for St Patricks weekend with shamrock.  If it wasn't Irish enough with the shamrock , my husband dubbed them further as 'Father Ted's Chocolate Mint Cake'.  For those of you unfamiliar with this reference, here's a link to the hugely successful Irish comedy show Father Ted shown by Channel 4. 

These little round cakes were rather popular, so popular that I had to make another batch for Saturday.  I have to admit the mint was very subtle, so I upped the quantity to 3 tablespoons for the second batch - much better.

Father Teds Chocolate Mint Cake 
Makes  8 x 3 inch round cakes
Ingredients
30g cocoa powder
180g plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
165g brown sugar
200ml strong brewed coffee, cooled
100ml vegetable oil
3 tablespoons of mint syrup
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
Optional: Ready to roll green icing
Optional: Icing sugar for dusting
Method
Heat the oven to Gas Mark 5. Oil an 8 inch round baking tin or 8 round/oval cake tins lined with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir in the sugar. In a small bowl, combine the coffee with the oil, mint syrup and whisk. Then beat the liquid into the dry ingredients. Then quickly stir in the vinegar.
Pour the batter into the prepared tins and bake for 30 – 35 minutes, or until a toothpick in the centre of the cake comes out clean. These are better served the following day.
The following day, roll out green icing and use a shamrock cookie cutter for decoration and top cakes.  Sprinkle with additional white icing sugar.