“She sneezes once, she sneezes twice, she’ll be me bride when she sneezes thrice.” -Leprechaun*

Wanting to depart from a super carb and calorie heavy St. Patrick’s Day meal, I opted on the lighter side this year. Traditional Irish meals are meat, potatoes, and hearty breads. I decided to keep the potatoes, omit the bread, and focus on greens in everything. Our menu this year was a veganized colcannon, tofu Irish stew, and fresh pressed Leprechaun juice!

I’ve made colcannon in the past, which is a traditional Irish dish consisting of potatoes and cabbage.  I used the VegNews Colcannon recipe and omitted the leek, doubled the kale (as I didn’t have any cabbage), replaced the margarine with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, and used almond milk instead of soymilk. It was fantastic! It was a nice blend of potatoes and greens or as Mr. Tuxedocat says, “It’s hard to go wrong with ‘taters and kale!”

Next on the menu was a peppery Unbeef Stew, also from VegNews. The protein base in this recipe was tofu with a mix of potatoes, onions, and carrots. I left out the margarine and added 1 1/3 cups of frozen peas to the dish to give it more color, nutrients, and green! This was quite tasty, although a reduction in the vegan worchestershire sauce may be in order to cut down the sweetness of the dish. I didn’t have time to cook this recipe overnight in a slow cooker, as the original recipe called for, so I just did it on the stovetop for approximately 1 hour.

In staying with the healthier theme of the menu, we avoided green beer, and went for true greens with my homemade Leprechaun juice! Using an Omega Juicer, I made a spicy, sweet, green beverage.

Leprechaun juice
4-6 turnips
4 celery stalks
2 dino kale stalks
2-3 carrots
1 apple

Cut the veggies and fruit into smaller pieces that can fit down the juicer shaft. Juice everything, making sure to juice the softer ingredients (like kale) first, followed by harder ingredients, such as carrots, to help it go down. Makes approximately 16 ounces of juice. Drink and enjoy!

This was a fairly low calorie meal. A serving of the colcannon (based on 6 servings) was 230 calories. A serving of the Unbeef Stew (based on 4 servings) was 151 calories. Eight ounces (half of the recipe) for the Leprechaun Juice was 100 calories. The total for this meal was 481 calories! A guiltless, green, gourmet meal. Who can beat that?

*Keeping with my cheesy St. Patrick’s Day tradition, we watched Leprechaun 2 this weekend for good measure.

Overall, we’d rate this dinner 3 out of 5 carrots on the veganlicious scale!