Time for another throwback Thursday! Last year for Scottish Games Day, we had a themed lunch with some of our favorite strategist friends! My husband has mostly Scottish heritage (with a little English and Irish sprinkled in there), so the theme and mechanics of these games really speak to him. We’d tried to make vegan haggis years ago, but it was time to try a new recipe, and this one was a winner! Read on for the full story!

At a Glance…

Haggis & Scones

For the main entrees, we had some veggie mash (a classic that we discovered when living in the UK), made with some combination of mashed up carrots, turnips, swede (rutabaga), or parsnips. Kinda like mashed potatoes but with veggies! Our friend did a great job whipping this up.

I was in charge of the haggis. Now typically, haggis is made of unspeakable things involving animals that I would rather not speak, write, or think about. Instead, we made ours with mushrooms, lentils, and steel cut oats! It was actually super easy to whip up, and writing about it now reminds me that I need to explore The Pesky Vegan’s site even more and discover what else they have. For my fellow vegans out there, this actually reminds me of a classic lentil loaf, but with a unique twist and flavor. Give it a try!

For the scones, I decided to go much more traditional than my usual sweet and flavored ones. I’ve had this ‘traditional scone’ recipe for years, and I honestly can’t even remember or find where it came from. You can find many similar recipes to this online, but this is the one I use. It is obviously from a time before I was vegan, but I still use it to this day and just swap out the egg for a flax egg (1T flax + 3T water), vegan butter, and non-dairy milk, and voila! Traditional vegan scones! For the variations, I like to add in a mix of the dried fruit (currants, cranberries, apricots). This reminds me of my tea and scones at Betty’s when we lived in York!

The (Highland) Games

Glen More always seems like a bigger, longer game than it ends up being, in a good way! In it, you are moving your guy around a track, grabbing buildings to put into your territory. The track is one of those ‘you can go as far forward as you want but you can’t go back’, so there’s the constant dilemma of how much you want to get the thing you really want while skipping other stuff and giving other players more turns. Then when you put it in your territory, you often end up getting animals, wood, whiskey, and movement to put your highlanders in the perfect spot. There are also famous Scottish people to grab, fun historic castles, and more! The Chronicles edition has lots of fun modules, including making haggis haha. This one has tons of replayability and is breezier than it seems.

Clans of Caledonia is also Scottish, but much more economical than Glen More. You are also building up territories, but this time on a shared board, vying for the prime cheap land to put your milk factories, graineries, etc. This is one of the those games where you try to make your money last as long as possible, because you get to keep taking turns until you run out of money each round. You’re trying to get those animals and goods in order to fulfill contracts, which get more expensive each rounds. I’m not sure if it’s the adorable pieces or the satisfaction of making your turn and money last as long as possible, but I like this game a lot more than I would’ve thought considering how economical it is. This one is worth a try even if you’re not sold on the theme. It’s solid!

Want to buy these games? Check out your friendly local game store (FLGS), Amazon [here], or get a first-order discount at Board Game bliss [here].