Another Belated Holiday: St. Pat's

Right, so leading off with more excuses AGAIN. Spent most of St. Pat's finishing an application to Ada Developers Academy (which looks like an amazing program, they must get a bazillion applications), cooked colcannon, the subject of today's post, and then got sucked into NCAA basketball.

Did I mention I am from Kentucky? Of course I did. And what's the one thing Kentucky can almost always do well? Basketball. So it's, like, carnival season for Kentuckians, even non-sports-aficionado ones like me. (Obviously that ends by the time people start talking about, say, football. Keeps us humble, I hope.)

So anyway, I should have known better than to plan to do anything once I'd started watching ball. What can I say? Hope springs eternal. So here I am, back to do what I should have done last night.

Vegan Colcannon
I get so tickled by people who think they need to tell me that my St. Patrick's food is not, ahem, "authentic." I mean, clearly. So if you are looking for authentic, travel on, because this is not it. What this is, however, is very yummy and easy and seems Irish-y enough for good holiday fun. And as one of the millions of Americans of Irish descent, that's good enough for me. (Although this article, about what St. Pat might have really eaten, is super interesting.)

I got this recipe from VeganYumYum. Their site appears to have been compromised, and hasn't been updated with new content since 2012, so keep that in mind if you decide to visit. (I don't include the link because I don't want folks to click and then end up on a compromised site, without reading these caveats, but you can easily find it via google if you want to visit them anyway.)

As per usual, the recipe is adapted a bit to how I made it, not verbatim from VeganYumYum.

My pictures are not as pretty as the originals, sorry

Colcannon
30-40 minutes, including chopping time and cook time

Four main-dish servings (for us, anyway)

4 Cups Chopped Potatoes, VeganYumYum recommends Yukon Gold, we used Russett
Garlic powder, to taste
3 Tbs Earth Balance Margarine
4 Cups Chopped Kale
2 Cups Chopped Seitan
1 tsp Soy Sauce
1-3 Tbs Nutritional Yeast
2-4 Tbs Soy Milk
Salt and Pepper to taste

1.) Chop potatoes into app. 1" cubes. You can peel, but VeganYumYum didn't and we didn't. Boil in salted water until mash-able (soft but not waterlogged, in her words), about 30 minutes for us, and we like them on the soft side.

2.) Chop your seitan into bite-size pieces (if you make your own, as we do, or if you bought slices or larger pieces). Go ahead and wash your kale and tear the leaves also into bite-size pieces. Sometimes I am lazy and start the seitan cooking before I do the kale, and then I tear the kale directly into the pot: you can do it, but it doesn't always come out the best.

3.) Once your seitan and your kale are in nice little pieces, melt your butter in a pot large enough to hold your potatoes, kale, and seitan: you're going to put them all together soon. Once the butter is melted, dump in your seitan to brown a bit. Stir frequently, to keep it from sticking and burning. But it's not a big deal if it does a little--you are going to mash the seitan later, so it's not important that it stay in big pieces. It's fine if it falls apart, tears, etc.

4.) As your seitan is browning, sprinkle in the desired garlic powder. VeganYumYum uses 4 cloves, which is 1 tsp powder. Then add your kale and soy sauce and keep stirring periodically. You want the kale to get nice and wilted. Takes about 5 minutes.

5.) By the time the kale/seitan mixture is done, the potatoes should be done, too. (If not, just turn off the kale/seitan, cover, and leave it on the burner to stay warm.) When the potatoes are done enough--test with fork--add them to the kale/seitan mixture. I like to do this with a slotted spoon rather than draining the pot (so I can use the potato water for other things, if needed), but you can do whichever you prefer.  Stir together.

6.) Mash the potatoes, kale, and seitan together, adding soymilk or potato water as needed to achieve your desired consistency. Sprinkle on nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper to taste.

This is pretty delicious and easy, and is totally appropriate for a weeknight, non-St.-Pat's meal. I am told you can use cabbage in place of kale for a more authentic variation, so do that if you have a half-bag of coleslaw mix in the fridge and no kale.