Vegan dinner party

thriftlady_2

I'd be tempted to go Indian.
Onion bhajis as Sarahsaver suggests, lentil dhal, veg curry, spicy chickpeas,chapatis, pickles etc.Without the traditional ghee of course.Sorry I don't have actual recipes,but that's the sort of thing I'd do.

Fresh fruit salad for pud.

Gingham_Ribbon

Or for someone going down the vegan Chinese meal route, frozen tofu has a crumbly texture very different to the smooth consistancy it has before it's frozen. It's perfect for crumbling and adding to rice to make 'egg' fried rice.

Sarahsaver

melancholly wrote:

any chance you could run the menu past them before the come? when people do have very restricted diets it seems fair enough.... i had a vegetarian friend who didn't eat pasta or tomatoes......... it was difficult to find lots of different things that i ended up checking everything with them!

The thing is that would annoy me. Being vegan or vegetarian is quite different from just 'not eating' something because you don't like it.

My main dish suitable for vegan/coeliac/diabetic/ plus a person allergic to everything that tastes good..(no tomatoes, garlic, onions, nuts ) was a bean hotpot flavoured with herbs and marmite, topped with sliced potato, toasted pumpkin seeds to start with, and I cant remember what the dessert was.

lofty_cherrytree

Thanks everyone for your wealth of suggestions, would have realised about the cheese eventually!! Got enough ideas to keep me going, but for tonight I think I will stick with the main and pud as planned, still undecided about the starter though. We would prefer Indian but we like our food a lot spicier than they do so I'm afraid I may misjudge the seasoning. Maybe next time...

LizD_2

Sarahsaver wrote:

Definitely no halloumi!

What about onion bhajis? I was a vegan from the age of 14 until well into my 20s.

You can make vegan cauliflower 'cheese', make a white sauce with breadcrumbs, soya milk and a tsp of marmite, and bake in the usual way. I have LOADS of vegan recipes, the most challenging was a meal for a coeliac, a diabetic, myself a vegan, and someone who was allergic to onions, nuts and tomatoes:) Will post the whole menu later when i remember what it all was!

Do you have the recipie for the hotpot? I'm veggie, but it sounds great

letsgobilliejoe

try https://www.parsleysoup.co.uk - the best vegan recipes on the planet!

P.S. you can never go amiss with a fruit crumble or pie. Just make sure you get margarine that has no animal products - I recommend "Pure" margarine with soya. It's in a green 500g tub from Tesco etc.

EDIT: here's the link for "pure" http://www.purespreads.com/home.asp

Trow

Sarahsaver wrote:

The thing is that would annoy me. Being vegan or vegetarian is quite different from just 'not eating' something because you don't like it.

But you don't know that they 'just don't like it'. Maybe they have a wheat/gluten intolerance. Maybe eating tomatos makes them physically gag.

On another subject - someone mentioned a 'cheese' sauce for a vegan - to do a cheese sauce that a friend chef of mine didn't even realise was vegan, use nutrional yeast flakes - health food shops sell them, the marigold brand (only one I know) sell them in brown tubs, very like their green tubs of boullion powder. Make a white sauce as usual and add a tablespoon or so of yeast flakes and a little mustard powder. Fab!

melancholly

Sarahsaver wrote:

The thing is that would annoy me. Being vegan or vegetarian is quite different from just 'not eating' something because you don't like it.

i see what you mean, what i intended to convey is that when people have a more limited variety of foods that they will eat (or rather when it takes looking for someone who's not used to it to find them!), if there's something they happen to also 'not like', it can be very difficult! my friend is a vegetarian AND refuses to eat pasta and tomatoes - and for a lot a meat eaters, a basic pasta with tomato based sauce seems like a good idea, but it wasn't!!
i'd hope that double checking what i was planning to cook came across as attempting to be sensitive, rather than annoying them....

Sarahsaver

I meant as a host i would be annoyed! If I were too fussy I would not expect people to bend over backwards to cater for me. When I was a vegan I used to take a jar of marmite everywhere with me!

letsgobilliejoe

Sarahsaver wrote:

I meant as a host i would be annoyed! If I were too fussy I would not expect people to bend over backwards to cater for me. When I was a vegan I used to take a jar of marmite everywhere with me!

we take our own marge everywhere - that way there's always toast!