WIBTA if I refuse to cater for my ‘vegan’ MIL?

"It I ludicrous to expect a guest to bring their own food to a Christmas meal."

And it's ludicrous to expect your host to provide a vegan meal when you're not actually vegan.

This is a DH one - put him in charge of sorting vegan alternatives.

It’s easy to do the potatoes and veg. Just put a few of each together in a small baking tin before you add the fat and honey to the rest. Roast plain in olive oil. Buy a ready made vegan gravy, quorn roast, stuffing it whatever. She might not get every single item but then she’s being pretty demanding so simple should suffice

Why though? If people are fine to eat non halal, kosher, vegan food when I would follow suit As long as there's enough stuff they can eat to follow their code I. wouldn’ t sweat the rest. So environmentally unfriendly to buy/cook two separate version’s

@NormasArse most Quorn, except the stuff specifically marked vegan, has egg as the binding agent. And quite a few Quorn things also contain milk.

A caveat to my post above, has your MIL gone from vegetarian to vegan? In which case it wouldn’t be ok to serve her animal based food if she wouldn’t have eaten it previously. But if she was a meat eater and has recently gone vegan, it won’t kill her to relax her principles for the day.

But in this case, it's OP's MIL who is doing the berating of other people for not being vegan - even though she is not a 'proper' vegan herself. It reminds me a bit of the old comment about the man who "the more he goes on about how scrupulously honest he is, the quicker you count your spoons".

If there are foods that you don't like/are not willing to eat, there's nothing wrong with being upfront about it; but to put somebody to the trouble of catering for your expressed wishes for nothing is really rude.

It doesn't matter whether those wishes are that you're vegan, vegetarian, kosher, you don't eat X, you only eat X, you're 'vegetarian' apart from chicken, you don't like any vegetables apart from carrots and peas, or whatever - but don't tell lies about it and put your host to a whole load of completely unnecessary trouble. Have some respect for them.

Aren’t they? What’s in them that isn’t?

Tell her you can’t guarantee there won’t be cross contamination with animal products as you’ll be putting everything in the same oven so she’ll either need to take her chances or bring her own. Then serve her the same as everyone else.

I think you're being very kind to accommodate.

It shouldn't be difficult. If you're thinking of an individual nut or quorn roast, just add some potatoes and parsnips etc onto the tray with it, separate from your lovely fancy versions. Just salt, pepper or paprika and olive oil will be lovely. A microwave pouch of vegan gravy and she's good to go.

An individual pot of dessert from the supermarket, and one vegan cheese (blurgh) plus plenty of fruit for the final course.

This, putting her potatoes in a separate tiny pan/dish inside the potato tray or there won't be room in the oven. And she will have to come and make the Bisto when asked because it'll take some juggling for space and utensils.

Yeah, I think it is too much to ask. If I was the vegan in this scenario I would eat the sides that I could, but bring something for myself to eat too. I'd also feel a bit shame faced, because my Quorn burger looked shite.

Roast a few potatoes in oil (I think they’re much nicer anyway) and do a few parsnips/carrots in maple syrup (just as nice as honey), then freeze them -just reheat on the day. Add a jug of bisto gravy, which is vegan, and voilà. She gets a nice, vegan Xmas dinner and you can have all the meaty stuff. It’s not exactly much more effort.

Can’t you cook it in advance and freeze it.

It won't kill me for one meal. In many cases, it is likely a healthier alternative. Saying that, I wouldn't have a partner with such dietary restrictions if it was something I could screen out early on. I wouldn't want this to be part of my every day.

I think it's a bit rude to go to someone's place for dinner, then expect them to cook something special just for you. I can see I'm in a minority, but if I decided to go vegan, I'd see it as my choice and wouldn't expect others to go out of their way for me. I'd just eat the things I wanted and not the things I didn't want.

For honey carrots you can use Algarve syrup or maple syrup
buy an vegan instant gravy
be frozen roast potato's that are not in animal fat and cook hers separately in the air fryer
I would cater to her and if she want to eat the non vegan food then it's up to her

I know you said that you like to use honey on your parsnips and so do I. The other day I followed a recipe (Ottolenghi) that used Dijon mustard and Maple Syrup on root vegetables. It was delicious and I will now use this instead of honey.

Sticking to a strictly vegan diet can be really difficult, especially if dining out in restaurants, so I think you should cut her some slack, tbh. Asking her to bring her own food would be incredibly rude and unwelcoming. Do you not like her much, OP? Because it seems like you're grasping for "something" to hold against her.

My daughter and I are pescatarian. At Christmas we have a veggie alternative with all the veg (potatoes roasted without duck fat or beef dripping!) and some vegan gravy. Lidl do a lovely vegan gravy, easy to warm up. It’s not hard, and if she helps herself to bread sauce, cream or cheese, that’s on her.
If you want pancetta etc, just keep a portion back and roast/cook separately. If she can’t have stuffing or pigs in blankets, that’s her choice. Don’t go out of your way, but give her a vegan meal!