The eating o' the green: you can be Irish and vegetarian on St. Patrick's Day. (includes recipes)(Recipe Redux)

HOLIDAYS CAN BE TOUGH for vegetarians. Ever since they crawled out of the primordial ooze, most humans have celebrated special occasions with meat. But vegetarians gladly trade in old comfort foods for new and unusual sensations; too bad our family members won't join the parade!

The difference between my food choices and those of my parents were brought home last year when my mother, an Irish-American, visited me for St. Patrick's Day. I had forgotten that she develops an annual craving for corned beef and cabbage around the 17th of March.

In our Irish home, this hearty dish was the traditional accompaniment to St. Patrick's Day, as customary as the parades in New York and Boston. I couldn't believe I had forgotten. Perhaps I had repressed the memory because as a child I dreaded the sour cabbage smell that permeated our house when this stew was simmering on the stove.

Still, a challenge is a challenge and the disappointment on Mom's face as she contemplated a year without her beloved dish sent me to my kitchen to bang pots around in a guilty search for a worthy substitute. What a delicious surprise I found. With the luck of the well, the Irish, I swirled my boiling pot into a tasty, low-fat treat for even the most discriminating Irishman or Irishwoman.

In my meatless version, seitan replaces corned beef. The other traditional ingredients--cabbage, onion and carrots--remain, as well as the traditional seasonings of vinegar, mustard and horseradish. Potatoes, by the way, were cooked separately and served on the side in the house I grew up in.