Saint Patrick's Day Savory Cupcakes

Well, that went well. My Blogger to WordPress migration was supposed to happen during the weekend, that way by Monday everything would be ready to go. It took all day for the DNS propagation to happen on Saturday, so that entire day was wasted. Then on Sunday when I was finally able to access the site and set up WordPress, I had to end up re-importing my Blogger blog into Wordpress six or seven times. Or was it a hundred and seven times? I don't know! Who can remember? Anyway, everything seems to be running properly now after days of behind-the-scenes work.

I really hope the new site doesn't crash your browser.

I really hope you don't get a megazillion emails from Feedburner.

I really hope you like it!

Shall we carry on with the cooking and the eating now that Wing It Vegan is up and running again?

Saint Patrick's Day is coming! This is the first year since I started blogging that Mr. Wing-It and I have been home for this holiday. I am not Irish and neither is Mr. Wing-It, but we're both down with any holiday that has anything to do with food. Plus, I really want to visit Ireland some day, so that validates my right to celebrate this holiday right there. Yes, it does!

Anyway, I made a little batch of savory cupcakes with broccoli mashed potatoes because it is mandatory that one eats green food on Saint Patrick's Day. I did something I haven't done in over a decade and used a drop of green food coloring in the mashed potatoes. I'm not a fan of using food coloring, but the broccoli mashed potatoes didn't look in-your-face green like I had envisioned, so I figured one drop of food coloring isn't going to kill me. You can leave it out if you want a more natural, more pastel green.

Also, you can use any meatless meatloaf recipe that you like best. This is my favorite meatless-loaf that I make with my absolute favorite vegan beefless crumbles made by Beyond Meat. They are soy and gluten free, and they are delicious! I hadn't eaten any beefless crumbles in years because I went off the ones I used to enjoy in the past, so it has been nice to have a good beefy substitute that tastes good and works wonderfully.

Savory Cupcakes with Broccoli Mashed Potatoes Recipe Type: Entree Cuisine: Vegan, Gluten-Free Option Author: Wing It Vegan Total time: 40 mins Serves: 6 Ingredients: 2 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes (about 24oz/640g) 3.5oz/200g frozen broccoli 2 1/4 cup meatless crumbles 3 tbsp chickpea flour 1/4 tsp salt 1 1/2 tsp onion powder 3/4 tsp ground thyme 3 tbsp barbecue sauce 3 tbsp vegan mayo 3 tbsp breadcrumbs olive oil for brushing a dollop of vegan butter extra salt and pepper, to taste 1 or two drops of green food coloring What To Do: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare mashed potatoes. We want the mashed potatoes and the little meatless-loaves to be done at the same time, so we're going to prep the potatoes but wait to turn the heat on until the mini loaves are ready to go in the oven. Place the cubed potatoes and broccoli in a large pot and fill with cold water until there's about an inch of water over the potatoes. Set aside. Defrost the meatless crumbles in a large microwaveable bowl. My microwave does this in two minutes, yours may be faster or slower. Transfer the crumbles to a food processor and pulse three or four times until the bigger crumbles break up into smaller pieces. We don't want to turn them into a paste or over-process them. Just three or four quick pulses will do. This step is optional, I just don't like my meatless meatloaves to be very chunky. Prepare the binding mix by combining the chickpea flour, salt, onion powder, thyme, barbecue sauce, and mayo in a small bowl. Give it all a good whisking until smooth. Add the mix to the meatless crumbles and mix well. Throw in the breadcrumbs and stir them in until your meatless mix is workable. You don't want it to be sloppy and wet, but you don't want it to be dry and crumbly either. Brush plenty of olive oil all around and on the bottom of six of the cups (cavities/holey things/what do we call them?) of a muffin tin. This is no time to hold back! About a teaspoon per cup/cavity/holey thing was enough to keep my meatless-cupcakes from sticking. Press your meatless mix into each oiled cup of the muffin tin and smooth the tops with the back of a spoon. The edges will be a little jagged if you don't smooth them out and they may get a bit too toasty in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes. Immediately bring the water to a boil and cook the potatoes and broccoli for 18-20 minutes or until fork-tender. Drain well. Now your meatless cupcakes should be nearly ready. Remove them from the oven and let them cool down for a couple of minutes before you run a knife all around the edges to loosen them up. Flip them over on a chopping board or other flat surface and move on to the mashed potatoes. To flip the little meatless cupcakes over, it's best to put the chopping board right on top of the muffin tin and then flip it with the cupcakes right against the board. That way you don't give them the chance to crash down and break into pieces. If you oiled the muffin tin well this should be a smooth job.  Use an electric mixer on high to whip those potatoes and broccoli into a smooth "buttercream" frosting. Mix until super smooth. Add vegan butter and salt and pepper to taste. If you want to use food coloring this is the time to do it. Now the fun begins! Transfer your mashed potatoes to a piping bag or Ziploc bag fitted with a decorating tip and pipe the mashed potatoes over the meatless cupcakes any way you want. I like a big TOWER of mashed potatoes on mine, just like I like a big tower of frosting on my sweet cupcakes. The decorating tip that I used is a large Wilton 1M open star tip. You can use any tip you like, really. Decorate with fresh herbs, sliced chives, or whatever floats your boat! Gummy bears? Maybe not.

What do you think? Would you eat savory cupcakes or do you think they would break your brain because your brain would expect them to be sweet? Did I ever tell you about the time when I used a chunky block of white chocolate instead of a chunky block of Parmesan cheese to grate over my pasta? Yep. I did that. My mom had the white chocolate sitting on the table because she was baking something and I just picked it up and piled that stuff up high on top of my pasta like it was going out of style. I took a bite and my taste buds were horrified. My brain was shocked and confused. It looked like salty cheese. It tasted like sweet chocolate. It was not good.

I made a similar version of these but with plain mashed potatoes back in 2008. Those had little parsley leaves as decorations, and by the looks of that photo I had piped the mashed potatoes onto the mini meatless cupcakes straight from a pastry bag. No decorating tip. So if you don't have a decorating tip you can still make make these! And if you don't even want to bother piping them at all, you can also just *plop* the mashed potatoes on with an ice cream scoop or even with a regular spoon. Check out this Mashed Potato Snowmen post to see how I did just that.

OK. I've done my damage here. Happy green food day!