full irish vegan

We appear to have slowed down a little here at mad tasty, if you've noticed, so apologies for that.  I do think Jade's epic post below this does make up for that somewhat, so I won't pity our readers too much.

If you're on the lookout for more tasty eats, do check out Full Irish Vegan for both inspiration and lovely photos.  I do love that the blog immediately tackles that dreaded fear that one could never have a full on fry again.

Vegan Friendly Cooked Breakfast

I stayed in my vegan friend's house last week, and made a pretty good vegan friendly version of a cooked breakfast! Ok, the mushrooms and tomatoes are there already - but this post will share info about the product available to create vegan sausages that tastes like pork, and how to make a scrambled tofu that looks and tastes very much like egg....

Ingredients:

• Mushrooms
• Tomatoes
• Potato Farls
• Asda Meat Free Sausage Mix, Water, Soy Sauce, Garlic Powder, Pepper.
• Tofu, Engevita Yeast Extract, Onion Powder, Salt, Pepper, Turmeric.
  

1) For the sausages, Asda have a fab meat free sausage mix - just add water, mould into shape and pop on the pan. As a pork lover, this didn't really float by boat, but it came close enough.... add some garlic, soy and pepper to bring out a more spicy porky flavour! I probably made it too watery and could do with some practice to get it right....













2) To make the scrabbled tofu, cut out a chunk of tofu, and pop onto a hot pan, using vegetable oil. Use this yeast extract, Engevita, to add a cheesy nutty taste. Add the onion powder, salt and pepper, and some turmeric to give the tofu an eggy colour, and mix about on the pan until scrambled. Now this is delicious!







3) Served with fried mushrooms, fried or grilled tomatoes, and potato farls....and yes, there is soy milk in the tea. A full cooked breakfast, without a trace of animal products!

Carrot-Butternut Squash Soup

You'd never believe that this one is vegan. It tastes—not unappealingly—like there might be a stick of butter in there, and in that respect will be a perfect addition to whatever you stuff your face with this weekend. For variety, you might want to add some roasted chestnuts before you puree the soup, or stir in some chopped greens like spinach, chard, or kale at the end.

Carrot-Butternut Squash Soup
Serves 4

• 1 small or 1/2 a large butternut squash, halved from the stem to the base
• 3 T olive oil
• 2 large shallots, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 carrots, cut into thin discs, peeled or unpeeled
  
• 1 bay leaf
• 5-6 cups vegetable stock
  
• salt & pepper, to taste
• fresh lemon juice, to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Roast the squash: Rub about a teaspoon of olive oil all over the skin and the flesh of the squash, then place it face down on a baking sheet (foil-lined, if you'd like). Roast for 15 minutes, flip it over and roast it for 10 minutes, and turn it face down for about another 15 minutes. It will be done when you can effortlessly skewer it with a knife. Cool until safe to handle, then scoop out the seeds, trim off the skin, and roughly chop.

Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the shallots and fry until almost translucent, then add the garlic, carrots, bay leaf, and squash, tossing to combine. Cover the pot for three minutes, which will allow everything to steam and sweat and release its goodness. Pour in the stock, covering by about 3/4". Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so, until everything is tender. REMOVE THE BAY LEAF and then puree the soup either with an immersion blender, in batches in a regular blender or food processor, or through a food mill (it best pureed, otherwise I'd list here an option to mush it up with a potato masher). Add salt, pepper, and lemon, adjusting seasonings however you see fit, and serve.

Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

As a contribution to a dinner party with both vegan and non-vegan guests, we made these easy, crowd-pleasing cookies found here.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup margarine
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup table sugar
• 1 ripe, mashed banana
• 5 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp vanilla soy milk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder stirred into the flour
• 2 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 2 1/2 cups chocolate chips (check if there is milkfat in the chips. We ended up using Ghiradelli

Instructions:

Beat together the margarine and sugars. Add the mashed banana and mix well, then add the vanilla, then the soy milk. Keep mixing and add the dry ingredients, in the order above.The final batter should be almost too dry to hold the chocolate chips. As the original post says, "Dry batter is good, since any chips that fall off the batter can go directly into your mouth, and no one will miss them."

Bake them for 10 or 12 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 375F on an ungreased cookie sheet. Let them congeal on the sheet for a moment after removing them from the oven, then cool on a plate or a wire rack.

The banana and large amount vanilla give these cookies a great flavor. And one excellent bonus of vegan cookies is that you can eat as much batter as you like without the dangers of raw egg.

vegan lasagna

Inviting vegans to a dinner party often causes issues. What can you serve that everyone will like, without causing the meateaters to grumble or the animal-lovers to go hungry? The solution is a big dish that tastes like it has dairy in it but doesn't really. This is a vegan lasagna recipe we made for friends a few weeks ago.

We slightly messed with a recipe found here. They called for making your own sauce. We skipped that hour-long step in memory of Paul Newman, RIP.


Be sure to get two jars of tomato sauce - you'll need 'em. Here's the rest of the recipe:

• 1 Tbs. salt
• 1 lb. dry uncooked eggless lasagna noodles
• 2 (16-oz.) packages firm tofu, drained
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Bring large pot of water to boil. Once the water boils, add salt and noodles. Cook until al dente. Drain, rinse with water and drain again. To keep the noodles from sticking layer them between damp paper towels. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Crumble tofu into a blender or food processor. Blend with garlic, basil, parsley, salt and pepper until you have the consistency of ricotta:

Now you're ready to put it together. Spoon about 1 cup sauce over bottom of a baking dish (no need to oil first). Add layer of noodles and top with one-third tofu mixture. Spoon over about 1 1/2 cups sauce and top with another layer of noodles. Keep doing this in stages until you're out of everything.

Cover with foil and bake for half an hour. While you're waiting discuss animal rights.


Remove from oven and let stand about 15 minutes before serving.
How did it taste? Great, and everyone liked it. However... we all had ideas for how to improve on it. The tomato sauce we used could have been chunkier, for one. We could have added more garlic to the tofu, too. But the best idea was to include fake ground beef in a layer. Because it's such a simple recipe, there are hundreds of ways to vary this one. And they will all work.