Meatless Monday with Vegan St Patrick’s Day Recipes

Hello and welcome to the St. Patrick’s Day edition of our Meatless Monday vegan recipe share. Miratel supports Meatless Monday as it encourages eliminating meat from your diet one day per week to preserve the health of our planet (and ourselves!). We consider our support of this great movement part of our CSR business strategies as it spreads awareness of the impact of our food choices on our environment.

Going vegan doesn’t mean you have to give up the foods you love or celebrating holidays like St. Patrick’s Day and today’s vegan menu proves just that. For our main course we’re making Irish white bean and cabbage stew from Vegan Magazine, based on a recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. For dessert we’ll serve a chocolate Irish whiskey cake from The Vegan Cookbook Aficianado, which was adapted from VegWeb.

Irish White Bean and Cabbage Stew Ingredients (serves 6)

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 ribs celery, chopped
  

  Image courtesy of Vegan Magazine vegan-magazine.com

• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 head cabbage, chopped
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 1 to 1-1/2 pounds potatoes, cut in large dice
• 1/3 cup pearled barley (optional or substitute with gluten-free grain)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon rosemary, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 6-8 cups vegetable broth
• 3 cups cooked great northern beans (2 cans, drained)
• 1 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• salt to taste

Instructions

• Crock Pot: Place the vegetables, seasonings, and barley into a large (at least 5 quart) slow cooker. Add enough vegetable broth to just cover the vegetables (start with 6 cups and add more as needed). Cover and cook on low heat for 7 hours. Add beans, tomatoes, parsley, and salt to taste. Check seasonings and add more herbs if necessary. Cover and cook for another hour.
• Stovetop: Place vegetables, seasonings, barley, and broth into a large stockpot. Cover and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 45 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, check seasonings, and add more herbs if necessary. Simmer uncovered for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Chocolate Irish Whiskey Cake Ingredients

• 1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans or walnuts (optional)
• 1 Tbs brown sugar
• 1-1/4 cups soy, almond, rice or coconut milk
  

  Image courtesy of The Vegan Cookbook Aficianado cookbookaficionado.files.wordpress.com

• 2/3 cup light tasting oil
• 1/2 cup Irish whiskey
• 1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons strong coffee
• 1 cup cane sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Whiskey Ganache

• 1/3 cup soymilk
• 2 tablespoons Irish whiskey
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup or agave

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a bundt pan with cooking spray.
2. Toast walnuts in small pan, remove from heat and mix in tablespoon of brown sugar. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl combine milk, oil, Irish whiskey, remaining sugars, coffee and vanilla. In a larger bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and add wet, mix until there are very few lumps remaining (some are ok). Pour half the batter into prepared bundt pan then sprinkle the walnut/sugar mixture over batter, cover with remaining batter. Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes or until the cake feels firm to the touch and has slightly pulled away from the sides of the pan
4. When done place pan on rack for 10 minutes then remove cake from pan and place on rack.
5. To make ganache heat a double boiler over medium-high heat and bring the soymilk and whiskey to a boil, lower to simmer and add the chocolate and liquid sweetener and mix till the chocolate starts to melt, remove from heat and continue to mix until smooth. Let cool slightly and drizzle over cake. Let cool and enjoy.

If you haven’t already, we encourage you to visit the Meatless Monday website and join us in taking the pledge today. Spread the word at home and at work and promote CSR business initiatives to make your green call centre, office, factory, shop, restaurant or salon even greener.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day……Slainte!

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including PCI compliant inbound telephone fundraising, outbound telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery fundraising services, donation processing and receipting and direct mail fundraising services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all our business decisions  and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.