Luck of the Irish or Italian?

It just dawned on us that we're hosting an out-of-town guest over St. Patrick's Day weekend ... and we're having a dinner at our house on Saturday in her honor. Hmm. this is kind of screaming traditional Irish dishes done in an Engine 2 approved way, isn't it?

St. Patrick's Day standards are usually really heavy on meat, butter, cabbage and potatoes. Luckily, two of those 4 are already Engine 2 approved. Now, how to make the whole meal friendly to our challenge?

Consider yourself lucky as a leprauchan because my fiance has been done all the work for us compiling these great plant-based recipes from Fat-free Vegan Kitchen:

Corned "beef", cabbage and roasted potatoes
Colcannon puffs
Irish white bean and cabbage stew

My addition:

Whole wheat irish soda bread with raisins

Although this is an exciting adventure of a spread, we decided to play it safe by making a marinara pasta with a side salad. We'll look for an opportunity to make some of these dishes when we don't have a dinner party to host with folks who aren't on the Engine 2 challenge.