Happy Burns Night!

'Buttered' Leeks

Vegan Haggis
(I know, it's the centrepiece and should be the top picture, but lets face it, haggis may taste good but it ain't pretty!)

'Neeps & Tatties'
(potatoes and turnips)

Plated up.....

Cranachan for dessert!
(well, a veganized and ever so slightly Canadianized version!)

Phew.... that was a lot of food.... but yes, being partly Scottish I always enjoy taking part in Burns night, and as it's his 250th anniversary felt I must! I have made vegetarian haggis once before and really enjoyed it, I have also bought the vegetarian/vegan one that is out there, it's very good but there is something just too funny about making your own vegan haggis! The first time I made it I followed the Vegetarian Society's recipe and it turned out great but I felt like messing about with it this time. Mainly their recipe called for red lentils and red kidney beans but I thought of using puy lentils which are so good and thought they would fare well in this. I also used half pinhead oatmeal and half rolled oats and added 25g vegetable suet. For the nuts, I couldn't find the ground ones they called for so used half ground almonds and some chopped hazelnuts and increased the mushrooms. Altogether it was delicious and I would only increase the amount of cayenne next time, it was spicy before going into the oven then really mellowed out while baking.

Haggis recipe:
2 small onions, finely chopped
1 Tbsp sunflower oil
1 large carrot, finely chopped
100g mushrooms, finely chopped
100g dry puy lentils
1 pint vegetable stock (make with whatever cube/powder you like)
35g ground almonds
25g chopped hazelnuts (or any other nuts you have)
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/8 tsp cayenne (or more)
1 1/2 tsp mixed spice
100g pinhead oatmeal
100g rolled oats
25g vegetable suet

First wash the lentils well and place in a pot and cover with cold water - do not add salt. Cover, bring to the boil and fast boil for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200C and oil and line a 1lb loaf tin with baking paper - set aside. Fry the onion in the oil for 5 minutes then add the carrot and mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes. Now add the drained par cooked lentils, lemon juice, herbs/spices and the stock and cook over medium heat with the lid on for 15 minutes. Stir in the soy sauce and the nuts and oatmeal and simmer for another 10 minutes, you may have to add more water. Press mixture evenly into the loaf tin, smooth out the top and bake for 30 minutes. Serves 4 - 8 (it's pretty filling so I would say 8 but to each there own!)

'Buttered' Leeks recipe:
Comes from BBC Good Food and I just used vegan margarine instead of the butter, used more of it and scaled the whole thing down - I used 450g of leeks to 25g margarine.

Neeps & Tatties:
That's potatoes and turnips in other words! Recipe also comes from BBC Good Food and was very, very good, partially down to the fact that my hand slipped with the salt whilst cooking the turnips making them even more yummy but really it's a very good recipe. I followed it directly but quartered the recipe and just used vegan margarine instead of the butter. The second baking in the oven essential as is making sure the oil is really hot when you add the parboiled potatoes. Do leave the skins on too as they suggest, they got nice and crispy in this which was lovely.

Cranachan recipe:
This is a traditional Scottish dessert made with double cream, whiskey, honey, toasted oatmeal and berries. There are loads of different variants of this out there so I didn't really have a 'base' recipe to base this on. Mostly the problem was replacing the cream - I don't like the soy whipped creams out there and anything else is too runny i.e soy yogurts etc.. I was happy to read that it was also made out of crowdie, a type of cream cheese so thought of using some tofutti cream cheese for the filling, I was thinking of a floppy, whiskey, maple infused cream cheese type thing. I'm happy enough with what came out of it although I personally would have liked more whiskey, think I would double the whiskey/oat cream/ cornflour stage in this. I decided to use pinhead oatmeal for the topping (it's inside as well) and read somewhere that Nick Nairn suggested adding sugar to oatmeal while toasting so thought that maple sugar I got recently would be nice. It is. Only other thing I may change next time is to mash up some of the raspberries to swirl over the cream layer as it needed a little more of that.

113g tofutti cream cheese
75g tofutti sour cream
1 Tbsp oat cream
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1Tbsp whiskey (again, next time I would double the oat cream/maple/whiskey/cornflour stage)
40g icing sugar (??? I'm afraid I lost count while adding this - just go to taste and thickness)
1/2 Tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
fresh raspberries or blackberries
pinhead oatmeal - no measurement, I just tossed some in a frying pan
maple sugar, or demerara, again no measurement here I just eyeballed it against the oatmeal.

Whisk together the cream cheese and sour cream, set aside. Mix together the cornflour with the whiskey and set aside. In a small saucepan heat up the oat cream with the maple syrup, stirring well. When it just comes to a simmer add the whiskey mixture and stir constantly as it thickens up, remove from the heat. Take some of the cream cheese mixture and mix into the whiskey mixture briskly then add this mixture to the rest of the cream cheese mixture and whisk everything together. Now add the icing sugar whisking as you go until very smooth, thick and sweet enough. Don't worry if it's not super thick as it does set up a little more in the fridge. Place the oatmeal and sugar in a dry non stick frying and fry carefully until the sugar starts to melt and it starts getting sticky. Quickly transfer to a plate and carefully separate it all with your hands as it cools. In serving glasses layer cream, oatmeal, raspberries - serves 2 well.