Mushroom & Guinness Pie

I'm currently making and sharing lots of recipes inspired by the United Kingdom. As spring here has had plenty of chilly days and nights, the stodgy comfort food has been quite nice. I felt it was important to include an Irish inspired dish loaded with Guinness - so here it is. Unfortunately, Guinness itself is not actually vegan, so if you're making this dish and you're a vegan or a vegetarian you can just swap out the Guinness for a vegan/vegetarian friendly stout (such as Coopers).

I never do things by halves, so I've used almost a whole can of Guinness in my pie. This makes for a lovely strong Guinness flavour, which may not be for everyone. If you like it a bit milder, just substitute one of the cups of Guinness for some more beef stock (I've used Massel beef stock, which has no animal content).

Mushroom & Guinness Pie

Ingredients
2 onions, finely chopped
4 gloves garlic, minced or crushed
2 tbsp butter or margarine (vegan friendly)
500g large field (portobello) mushrooms, washed and cut into medium chunks
3/4 cup wholemeal flour
2 cups Guinness (or stout beer)
1/2 cup strong hot 'beef' stock (no animal content brand)
1 tbsp soy sauce
cracked pepper to taste
2 sheets puff pastry, thawed
Sesame seeds, to sprinkle

To Make
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. 
2. Melt the butter in a frypan and cook the onions and garlic until translucent. Add the chopped  mushrooms and 1/2 cup Guinness and simmer until the mushrooms are cooked.
3. Add the flour and stir vigorously. Next, gradually add in the remaining Guinness and the beef stock, stirring continuously to make a gravy. Adding gradually and stirring lots should prevent it forming lumps and keep it nice and smooth. If it's looking a bit too dry, you can add a touch more stock or beer to slacken in a bit (this can vary, depending on how juicy your mushrooms were in the beginning). 
4. Season with soy sauce and plenty of cracked pepper.
5. Grease a pie dish and line the bottom with one of the sheets of puff pastry. Pour the filling in and top with the remaining sheet of pastry and crimp the edges firmly together using your fingers, or a fork. If you want to use cutouts, like I did, cut them out of the pastry before you put it on the pie. If not, just use a knife to make a few slits in the top to let the steam out while it cooks. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
6. Set your oven to the 'bottom only' setting and bake for 20 minutes (ensuring that the bottom is properly cooked) and then switch to the normal baking setting (top and bottom) and bake for another 10 minutes. It should be golden brown on top. 

Makes 1 pie, serves 4-6.

I'm featuring lots of recipes from the United Kingdom,

Check out my other recipe posts here:

Vegan Cauliflower Cheese

Summer Pudding

Treacle Tart

Vegan Bakewell Tart

Roasted Love Apple and Wine Soup

Cranachan (Whiskey Cream with Raspberries and Oats)

Orange and Lemon Vegetables

Scottish Vegan Oat Scones

Swede & Parsnip Mini Cottage Pies

"Ancient Egyptian Peasant" Beer Onions

My schedule for posting fell apart a bit this week - I had great intentions but to be honest a few things in my personal life have fallen to pieces over the last couple of weeks and posting was the last thing on my mind. Hopefully I won't be booted off the Vegan Mofo blogroll for not posting enough!

In keeping with my Egyptian food month theme - I bring you this dish. Now, before people jump on me I'll write a disclaimer about this dish. It's not an Egyptian recipe. I don't think it ever gets cooked in Egypt. So why is it part of Egyptian food month? Well, when I was doing reading about food and ingredients in Egypt I found a piece of interesting information. Apparently anicent Egyptian peasants and labourers were paid in beer and onions. Now, I'm not naive - I'm not suggesting that they cooked these up together in a fancy schmancy dish with cumin seeds. But when I heard "beer" and "onions" my brain just went "beer onions!". It sounded too delicious not to try so I did. And it was.

So these onions are inspired by ancient Egyptian peasants, hence the name. But it's a bit of artistic license on my part including it in Egyptian food month. Never mind about that - just eat some onions! These beer onions made a lovely side dish. They would also be great in a pie or wrapped in pastry like triangles. Or in little open tarts as canapés. You could do all sorts of things with them. Try adding some veggie sausages or some seitan to make a very hearty pie.

This recipe uses whole cumin seeds from my spice rack - as part of my theme for Vegan Mofo. I've already written up some interesting bits and pieces on cumin on this post, so I won't repeat myself! Jump over and check it out - you might learn something about cumin!

"Ancient Egyptian Peasant" Beer Onions

Ingredients
6 onions
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 x 375ml bottle of beer (pick your favourite vegan friendly brand)
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh thyme, to serve (optional)

To Make
1. Peel and slice the onions.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large frypan. Add the cumin seeds and toast for about 30 seconds then add the onions and sauté over a medium heat until they are softened and translucent.
3. Add the bottle of beer. Cover and cook over a medium heat for about 30 minutes, or until the onions are completely cooked and the beer has become saucy and thick.
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve sprinkled with fresh thyme (optional).

Serves 6 as a side dish, or makes enough filling for 1 pie.

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Egypt.

Check out my other Egyptian recipe posts:

Preserved Lemons

Limoonada (Egyptian Lemonade)

Mesa'a'ah (Spicy Eggplant)

Orange and Olive Salad with Cumin

Creamy Tahini Sauce

Ful Medames

Khoshaf

Hollandse Stroopkoek (Dutch Beer & Syrup Cake)

Another sweet treat from the orange land of The Netherlands! This one looks pretty innocent and plain. It looks just like a normal fruitcake. But it's more. It's so much more. It has quite a delicate texture, which is unusual for a fruitcake, and the flavours of the two main ingredients really contribute to a cake unlike any I've ever had before.

If you're thinking, 'I don't like beer that much', then don't let the beer put you off this cake. I'm not a big fan of drinking beer either. Yes, you can taste the beer in this cake, but it doesn't taste like drinking a beer! It simply adds a rich and hearty element to the cake - a slight bitterness to complement the sweet treacle.

I made quite a small cake for this one - as I was only having a couple of people over to help me eat it. It was so nice that I probably wouldn't have minded a full sized one, it would have meant that I had lots of leftovers! But probably best that I didn't! It doesn't rise much and makes quite a flat and dense cake. This is perfect really, because you only need fairly small slices (each slice packs a flavour punch!). I made it to fit a small 20cm diameter cake tin. If you want a full sized cake then you'll probably want to make about three times the recipe.

Hollandse Stroopkoek
Adapted from godutch.com
Ingredients
1 cup wholemeal flour
1  tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp treacle or stroop
1/4 cup Nuttelex (or other vegan marg)
3/4 cup beer
80g raisins
50g currants
1/3 cup walnuts
2 tbsp slivered almonds

To Make
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, allspice and salt in a large bowl.
3. Place the treacle and Nuttelex in a small saucepan and melt over a low heat until completely melted. Remove from the heat and gradually mix in the beer.
4. Add the beer mixture to the flour gradually, stirring.
5. Stir the raisins, currants, walnuts and almonds through the batter until evenly distributed.
6. Grease and line a 20cm diameter cake tin and pour in the batter.
7. Bake for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. To serve, sprinkle with icing sugar.

Makes 1 x 20cm diameter cake. I recommend serving with a cup of tea!

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from The Netherlands.

Check out my other Dutch recipe posts:

Lazybones Buns (Luilakbollen)

Naked Babies in the Grass

Speculaas (Spice Biscuits)

Gevulde Speculaas

Rosenkohl in Bier (Brussels Sprouts Simmered in Beer)

I'm a big fan of simple and elegant vegetable dishes. Sometimes you don't need to throw 10 different vegetables in a pot together to get a delicious dish, sometimes you just have to stop and appreciate the unique and delicate flavours of vegetables in their singularity! Simple recipes like this one are also easy and quick to prepare - which is an extra bonus.

This recipe is part of my German Food month, which has gotten off to a great start! You can check out my other German inspired recipes via the links at the end of this post. I think this is a great addition, and I love the idea that just by cooking something in bier it becomes German :)

The cooking time on this dish is variable, you can adjust it according to how you like your sprouts cooked - a tad on the crunchy side or a tad on the mushy side? Or just perfectly tender.

Rosenkhol in Bier
Adapted from recipesource.com

Ingredients
500g Brussels Sprouts
375ml beer (use a brand you know is vegan, I used Coopers)
2 tbsp vegan margarine
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp flaked almonds, lightly toasted

To Make
1. Trim the woody ends off the sprouts and cut in half.
2. Place the sprouts in a pan and cover with the beer.
3. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until they are cooked to your liking.
4. Once they are cooked how you like them, drain any remaining liquid and return to the pan (but not back on the heat). Add the margarine and the salt and toss.
5. Sprinkle with toasted slivered almonds and serve.

Serves about 6 as a side dish.

This month I'm featuring lots of amazing recipes from Germany!

Check out my other German recipe posts:

German Apple Pancakes

Rohkostsalat (Cabbage and Fruit Salad)

Deconstructed Black Forest Cake Parfait

Zwiebelkuchen (German Onion Pie)

Frankfurter Kranz (Bundt Cake Layered with Cherry Jam & Rum Buttercream)

German Potato Salad

Kaiserschmarrn (Torn Pancakes with Apple)

Rote (und grün) Grütze (German Fruit Jelly)

Mexican Car Bomb Cupcakes

Corona, tequila and lime in a cupcake - what more could you ask for in life?

Does anybody else do To Do Lists? I'm all over them, I think it's my control-freak tendencies. I always get up in the morning and write myself a list that looks something like this:

1. Clean kitchen

2. Clean out Uli's hutch

3. Clean bathroom and ensuite

4. Prune mulberry tree

5. Finish making trousers

6. Make something for Holiday Recipe Club

7. Blog recipe

8. Finish writing application

9. Write journal article

10. Make strawberry dress

11. Cut out Mah Jong dress

12. Vacuum house

Generally it's a ridiculously long list of things which I'll never possibly manage to get done. By the end of the day my list usually looks like this:

1. Clean kitchen
2. Clean out Uli's hutch
3. Clean bathroom and ensuite
4. Prune mulberry tree
5. Finish making trousers
6. Make something for Holiday Recipe Club
7. Blog recipe
8. Finish writing application
9. Write journal article
10. Make strawberry dress
11. Cut out Mah Jong dress
12. Vacuum house

At least I get some things done. However, as you can see the good news is that I managed to cook something to blog :) Today's Holiday Recipe Club ingredients are pork, watermelon and beer. Pork is obviously out, and watermelon is a bit ridiculous at this time of year - being incredibly out of season and not that appealing when it's freezing and windy. So that left beer. Lots of possibilities, but I couldn't really settle on anything.

What I ended up with were these cupcakes inspired by a drink called a Mexican Car Bomb. It's not a cocktail as such, it just means you take your corona and add a shot of tequila to it. I love Corona, it's delicious with lime and it's vegan friendly to boot! Using beer (or other carbonated drinks) in cupcakes makes for such a light and springy cake. These cupcakes are laced with corona and tequila with zingy lime icing on top. They're also perfect accompanied by a corona!

Ingredients

The Cake

1 cup Corona

1/4 cup tequila

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp lime zest

1/3 cup apple sauce

1 1/4 cups wholemeal plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

The Icing

1/2 cup vegan margarine (I use Nuttelex)

2 tsp lime juice

1 tsp lime zest (or as much as you like, I like to use more to make it extra limey)

1 tsp tequila

pinch of salt

1 cup soft icing mixture

Lime slices to decorate

To Make

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

2. Combine the Corona, tequila, sugar,vanilla, lime zest and apple sauce. Don't over mix it though, as you'll loose some of the carbonation of from the Corona.

3. Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix to combine.

4. Fill cupcake liners almost to the top and bake for 20 minutes, at which time a knife should come out clean when inserted into the middle.

5. Put on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely. While they are cooling you can make the icing.

6. Cream the margarine, lime juice and zest, vanilla and tequila together. Beat in the soft icing mixture until the icing is nice and fluffy. Ice cakes when they are completely cool and decorate with fresh slices of lime.

Makes 10 cupcakes.