Vegetarian recipes are a prominent feature in our family recipe collection. From carefully handwritten and indexed recipes for egg cutlets to notes shared between friends and written on the back of shopping lists, meat free recipes are plentiful because quite simply it seems meat was not!

This echoed very much with how our family eat now, 100 years on from when this was written. We love really good quality meat and when we have it we take care to cook it well and take the time to enjoy it. It's not revolutionary and it seemed a good starting point to try to delve into this historic recipe collection. 

One of the first recipes I tried from the family collection was Vegetarian sausages, written by our great grandmother Eileen Keady based on the timelines in the notebook this was in I think it's approx 100 years old. The title vegetarian sausages was intriguing as I just didn't expect this to be on the weekly meal plan in 1922 but when I read through it sounded like just delicious croquettes!

There are a few things that really worked in this recipe...

Using the leftovers - This really took a very small amount of left over veg, tablespoons of each which (to our shame) sometimes might not even feel enough to wrap up and look for a use for 
Sticks to simple - We made this on a Monday, a busy work day when we needed something nutritious and easy to have on the table pretty quick
It's tasty! - All of the delicious flavours from the Sunday roast are bundled up here and given a new lease of life with the crunchy breadcrumb coating, a simple salad and on this occasion a healthy dollop of Búilíní Blasta Mayonnaise

Ingredients
2 Tbsp cooked mashed potato
2 Tbsp cooked carrot
2 Tbsp cooked peas
2 Tbsp cooked beans
1 Tbsp chopped onion
4 Tbsp breadcrumbs (can also include celery or nuts)
Pepper & Salt
2 x Eggs (Beaten but kept separate)

Method
1. Mix all veg ingredients together, binding with 1 beaten egg 
2. Turn onto a floured board and form into a roll, divide into equal pieces and form into 8 sausages
3. Brush with beaten egg and coat with breadcrumbs
4. Fry in hot fat & drain well