Vegetarian Gourmand

I was happy with my braided bread, but wanted to find a way to make it more exciting. I decided on a sweet bread that would be good for breakfast, since it seemed to be my turn at work to bring in something fun to snack on and everyone there enjoys their morning toast. I decided on a apple raisin sweet bread.


Once again, I relied on my bread machine to make the dough.

Definitely happy with the recipe – a tasty breakfast or desert bread and a recipe that will be repeated.

Apple raisin sweet bread Ingredients: 1 cup milk 2 tablespoons butter, melted 2 tablespoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 3 cups bread flour 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast 1/2 apple, diced 1/4 cup raisins Using dough mode on the bread machine, I put all the ingredients in with the exception of the raisins and the apple pieces. I added the raisins when the bread machine beeped to signal it was time to add heavy ingredients. After the dough was finished, put the dough on onto a floured surface and kneaded in the apple pieces. However, I would let the bread machine work them into the dough as well, as by this point it seemed difficult to get them completely worked in. I divided the dough into three pieces, rolled each piece into a long thin baguette style piece, then braided all three pieces together. The dough was quite heavy so I allowed it to rise for 2 hours, which I think was necessary as it doubled by more than double its original size. Once risen, brush an egg wash on the dough, then baked it at 190C for 30 minutes.

I have lived in Scotland since September, and have just experienced my first haggis (vegetarian of course) served with a whisky cream sauce, mince, neeps and tatties. It was a wonderful experience, very tasty and enjoyable. Having one prepared by a proper chef is likely a good way to try it for the first time.

Scotland is very good at accommodating vegetarians, they had a vegetarian haggis set and ready for anyone who requested at this dinner, and it was nicely spiced, the mince was great and I would love to learn how to do it myself, and the presentation was the exact same as the meat version – it’s nice not to feel like your getting short changed by asking for the vegetarian dinner.

The Robbie Burns Supper

As per the usual Scottish customs, we were all asked to stand to receive the haggis. Then a piper walks in leading the chef, who is carrying the haggis, while we were all accompanying them with a slow handclap. Then Robbie Burns’ poem ‘To A Haggis’ was recited:

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang’s my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight, —— at which time the haggis is cut into
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
‘Bethankit’ hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect sconner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

We all then applauded, and the chef, speaker and piper toasted the haggis with a glass of whisky, and the rest of us with whatever drink we had on the table. We then stood as the piper and chef lead the haggis back to the kitchen. The dinner was followed by a caileh dance and finished with everyone who was left on the dancefloor linking arms and singing Auld Lang Syne.