Best Vegan recipes please?

[BenWillbondsPants]

I have a friend coming to stay for a few days next weekend and she's vegan.

We're not, but I want to cook some lovely meals that we'll all eat, so can I ask for your best vegan recipes please? I'm really keen not to make a massive deal out of it and make her uncomfortable by slinging her rubbish bland food because I don't know what I'm doing!

Spinach and chickpea curry
Chili con lentils

This is bloody delicious and eaten regularly in our house (we're not vegan)
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1426/finbars-veggie-spag-bol

Most Asian recipes don’t tend to have dairy in them, so veggie dishes are accidentally vegan. Indian dishes sometimes have ghee but that can be swapped for coconut oil. I did vegan January and ate a lot of daal and veg curries.

Jamie Oliver sweet potato chili is really nice as well (but you can’t add sour cream). You roast the sweet potato sprinkled with cumin, paprika and cayenne pepper and it makes the favours really rich.

www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/veggie-chilli/

I make a nice vegan tray bake that’s really simple - chop up loads of veg (something hearty like sweet potatoes or butternut squash, with any of courgettes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, onion), whole cherry tomatoes, whole garlic cloves, cashew nuts and loads of olive oil. Roast it all up for an hour or so till there’s some charred bits and serve with rice. If you like rosemary some sprigs of that are nice too. It’s also nice swapping out the cashew nuts for chunks of chorizo, after your friend goes home!

Does anyone have any thoughts for vegan BBQ food? I'm so sick of the sight of vege sausages that actually have egg or gluten in them that I could cry.

I'm afraid my favourite BBQ food is burgers and halloumi

Marinated veg and stuffed peppers or mushrooms could be nice I guess.

Whatever you do don't bother with Violife fake halloumi, it's vile and disappointing (bitter voice of experience)

Ooh just thought of one. Marinated tofu, ate some at a friends BBQ once and it was amazing.

hmm we are in a high throughput BBQ situation - so marinated doesn't sound good if its got to be kebabed...I also never really met tofu that would reliably stay on a stick! Maybe I've gotten the wrong idea?

Indian food is fantastic for variety with vegan food
Asda pizza counter do vegan cheese
Nothing wrong with beans and jacket potato
Stirfry with rice noodles
Not mad keen on fake meat but shroomdogs are lovely.
Fajitas are easy to do and add some meat for yourselves.

Accidentally vegan snacks
Pringles
Oreos
Most Bourbon biscuits
Pink wafers
Starburst
Choos
Jam donuts from Morrison’s

I had a vegan burrito out for lunch and it was great so I'm going to recreate it!

I think it was a mix of chickpeas, beans, veg (courgette, red onion) tinned toms inside a wrap. Yummy!

@M3lon have you tried the smoky jackfruit burgers from Sainsbury's? They're vegan and gf, they contain breadcrumbs but the breadcrumbs are made from rice flour. They're really nice. Also, barbecued asparagus, large flat mushrooms sprinkled with herbs and barbecued and barbecued bananas are lovely too.

@M3lon I am very much against most industrial vegan fakes. If you read the ingredient of the jack fruit burgers:
I so wish people would read and think about the engineering process behind the manufacturing of the non-food, to transform a lovely green pea into pea starch, pea flour, pea fibre , you need an engineering degree and he end result is not pea anymore. And the additive? Sodium Metabisulphite nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/1708.pdf

Ingredients

INGREDIENTS LIST:

Water, Mushroom (22%), Jackfruit, Pea Flour, Fried Onion, Vegetable Suet, Breadcrumb, Pea Fibre, Pea Starch, Stabiliser:Methyl Cellulose:, Pea Protein, Dried Onion, Light Brown Sugar, Salt, Yeast Extract, Grilled Beef:Flavouring:, Powder:Caramel:, Cracked Black Pepper, Preservative:Sodium Metabisulphite (Sulphites):, Smoke Flavouring.

Jackfruit contains:Jackfruit, Water, Salt, Citric Acid.

Fried Onion contains:Onions, Rapeseed Oil.

Vegetable Suet contains:Sustainable Palm Oil, Rice Flour.

Breadcrumb contains:Rice Flour, Maize Flour, Maize Starch, Salt, Dextrose.

Light Brown Sugar contains:Sugar Beet, Cane Molasses.

or for the other fake cited
Ingredients

INGREDIENTS:Water, Mushroom (26%), Pea Flour, Fried Onions (Onion, Rapeseed Oil), Vegetable Suet (Sustainable Palm Oil, Rice Flour), Sausage Casing (Sodium Alginate, Processing Aid:Guar Gum, Calcium Phosphate, Modified Corn Starch, Sodium Ferrocyanide)), Pea Protein, Pea Fibre, Pea Starch, Methyl Cellulose, Mushroom Powder, Parsley, Cracked Black Pepper, Salt, Granulated Sugar, Mace, Preservative:Sodium Metabisulphite (Sulphites).

Are you able to tell me what Sodium Alginate or Sodium Ferrocyanide? This last one is used in food industry as a substitute of salt, so you can claim a lower salt content on package, but do you know what it is :
From wikipedia
Sodium ferrocyanide is a chemical additive known as E number E535 in the EU. It is added to road and food grade salt as an anticaking agent. It is used as a stabilizer for the coating on welding rods. In the petroleum industry, it is used for removal of mercaptans.

In the EU, ferrocyanides (E 535–538) were, as of 2018, solely authorised in two food categories as salt substitutes. Kidneys are the organ for ferrocyanide toxicity.[5]

If some of you have switched to a vegan diet for health reason, you might reconsider your shopping basket. Even if safe as the levels used, don't you think it is wrong to eat them? Especially as they have been tested singularly, but not in the different combinations of several E numbers.

Go for Cauliflower steaks on your BBQ

Following for inspiration!

veggie curry

I do spag Bol using brown lentils instead of mince

tomato risotto

shepherds pie

^cant remember if all of these are vegan but they can all easily be made vegan if not.

There are a lot of delicious vegan recipes about tofu, I hope to help you.
www.tofutoday.com/tofu-recipes/ @BenWillbondsPants