HELP! Easy Vegetarian menu for 3 days for 10 people ??

[OldLace]

Suddenly - I have a group of 10 people to cater for next week. Eeek!
They are all vegetarian (but not vegan)

I am not used to cooking vegetarian food and am panicking.
I am not a confident cook.

It needs to be idiot proof (and cheap if possible as I am taking over responsibility for this from a family member and probably the £ too)

They will need a continental type breakfast (I cant cook for 10 first thing!), a simple lunch, afternoon cake & an evening meal with pud.

Apparently eggs and cheese are okay, she says.

So, day 1 I thought overnight oats with fruit, soup and toasties, choc cake, lasagna and ?pud? But how to offer a variety over 3 days?

I'm not completely thick but am in panic mode I think?

Any advice on dishes please? (and likely costs? grrr not happy...)

Take away one night and they pay

I like the themed meals for dinner. I would do:

All Breakfasts: cereal, oatmeal packets, toast, eggs available for ppl to cook, and maybe a batch of muffins. Basically this should be self serve.

All Lunches: a big pot of soup, crusty bread, grilled cheese, sandwich items, cold pasta salads (can be store-bought or made ahead).

Afternoon cake: I would buy some nice store-bought cookies, or you can prepare cookies in advance buy making different cookie doughs, then freezing them in dough balls (on a cooking tray in the freezer, then transfer to a big freezer bag). Each day, you just plop the frozen balls on a tray and cook it up for the group. I'm not British tho so idk what expected of afternoon cake...

Dinners:

1: Italian, lasagne, big salad with dif veg and a nice dressing, garlic bread.

2: Meze/med night: hummus, tzaziki, eggplant dip, a nice red lentil soup (check out NYT Melissa Clark recipe), falafel (pre-made), flat breads, Greek salad, and a big pre-made Greek spanikopita. this could all be mostly pre made stuff if you're stressed about the cooking.

3: Bean Enchiladas (check out budgetbytes.com), guacamole, salsa (premade), corn chips.

4: desserts: big tubs of ice cream, popsicles for kids, more cookies, fruit.

Other suggestions: buy a ton of crisps, crackers, snack items, and fruits.

Also maybe switch out one of the dinners for homemade pizzas, you could buy the pre-made doughs, have pizza sauce, shredded cheese and veg topping options.

What about some nice home made pizzas some night? Loads of amazing toppings? Roasted vegetables? Garlic butter? Mascarpone? Apple and blue cheese?

A Mexican night with veggie fajitas always goes down well.
Also various lasagnes. There's a great recipe of bbc website. It's a chicken, pesto and butternut squash one. Just google it. Replace the chicken with chunks of courgette and mushroom. Absolutely delicious.

And a chickpea/sweet potato curry

Keep it really simple.

Breakfast - help yourself to cereal, toast, pastries, yoghurt

Lunch - sarnies and crisps, soup and bread, egg cobs or sausage cobs

Tea -
curry
chilli
pasta
baked potatoes with salad

How many days?

I echo the plea to NOT suff a pepper with couscous, it's the most tedious option. Awful stuff.

The first chickpea recipe in this Ottolenghi article is fan-flipping-tastic. You bung everything in the pot and cook it on low in the oven. It's really full of flavour, very filling, perfect with a pitta and maybe a salad. It takes about 5 minutes to prep.
I've never known chickpeas to be quite as good as this.

amp.theguardian.com/food/2020/jul/11/yotam-ottolenghi-chickpea-recipes-confit-tandoori-polenta-chips-parmesan-braise?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter&__twitter_impression=true

Someone above mentioned the burnt aubergine chilli. It's an absolute knock-out dish and freezes well, but if you aren't a confident cook the recipe can look intimidating. Other than the weird bit of charring, peeling and chopping the aubergines, it's actually very straightforward.
My meat-eating family didn't believe it was veggie at first.

These are a few of my favourites...

Vegan Shepherds pie - serves 8 but you could make it a little bigger.
Bean & pasta stew - Substitute veggie ball for meat and use vegetable stock instead of chicken
Bean chilli - easily doubled or tripled. I normally serve it with crusty bread or rice rather than wedges.

This chocolate traybake always goes down well with my veggie friends.

Be aware if you are buying yoghurts that some of them, particularly the low fat thick ones , have gelatine in them. As do a few bought deserts .

If you are doing Italian style I would go for a pasta dish eg the arrabiata or primavera suggested rather than lasagne . They are a lot quicker / easier .

I am hoping that all your guests realise that you are hosting as a kindness and are not expecting restaurant quality meals at every meal, and nor should you try to provide this.

A veggie pasta dish is easy to make, accompany with salad and garlic bread .

Bean chilli is also easy (no need to add quorn ), serve with rice , guacamole , sour cream and tortilla chips

Veg curry also easy , use a jar sauce if it's easier .

You don't need to spend hours in the kitchen . Nothing wrong with buying ready made pizza , or quiche and heating . If you are doing a curry meal you can buy pakoras etc

And I wouldn't consider couscous stiffed pepper to be a cop-out. That is no less ubiquitous than any of the other meal suggestions .

Cheap and cheerful is the way to go and don't over complicate . Ten people is a lot to cater for over 3 days if you are not used to it.

When I’m doing breakfast for a lot of people I like cooking frozen pastries. I usually use Essential Waitrose ones and they are suitable for veggies. You Co. Do them in batches because you don’t want to eat them right out of the oven anyway.

Green roasting tin cookbook! You may have to double the recipes but they are so easy and you can practise before. Crispy gnocchi with mozzarella and tomato is lovely

I think for the sake of economy, a simple breakfast of toast etc is the way to go. A large thick sliced loaf is £1:05 at Waitrose, two of those would make breakfast for ten people.

I have a really easy lasagne recipe (I use all Sainsbury's own brand, assume there are equivalents elsewhere):

Packet of wholemeal lasagne sheets
Packet of frozen med veg
2x tins chopped tomatoes or 1x her passata
2x tubs fresh cheese sauce
Veggie parmesan / grated mozzarella or similar
Italian herbs / seasoning

Cook the med veg, tomatoes and seasoning in a saucepan for 5-10 mins until well mixed
Put thin layer of veg sauce, then cheese sauce, then pasta sheets in dish. Repeat making sure your last layer is pasta then cheese sauce. Sprinkle extra cheese on top. Bake in oven 40 mins. Done. Serve with salad, garlic bread etc to bulk out. You can make it ahead.

Tastes amazing and I'm usually a cook from complete scratch person so am quite fussy about food. My caveat is that I looked hard for a ready made cheese sauce that had good reviews - the Sainsbury's own brand did.

How about a build your own jacket potato evening or lunch? Ditto DIY pizzas using frozen pizza dough (Sainsbury's again - sorry! - do a really nice one).

I'd be tempted to make traybake or brownies for the afternoons, or fairy cakes and get the kids to decorate (if you have some there).

Deliciously Ella has a really good black bean, kidney bean and grated carrot chilli recipe. Really easy and tasty.

Cheese and potato pie, or cauliflower and broccoli cheese for lunch with bread?

Cheese, bread, veg sticks, olives and houmous? Could do that for two days. Quorn mini sausages are really nice. Falafels etc.?

Big vat of veggie curry and rice, naan and mango chutney. Fresh pineapple or exotic fruit with ice cream for pudding?

There's a great dinner traybake called Briam that we've been eating a lot of recently. It's a Greek dish with potatoes, courgette, onions and tomatoes (I cheat and use a jar of passata). You could bulk t out with spinach on the side, feta cheese, olives etc and bread.

Hope this helps.

Look at the cooking on a bootstrap blog - her recipes (jack monroe) meet your requirements perfectly!

Cheap, mostly veggie, easy to make, no special equipment required.

Old el.paso faijitas kit x 2 . Dead easy. Make with quorn instead of chicken.
Roasted veg and halloumi. Chop Tom's, onions, aubergine, mushrooms and halloumi. Bung in two large roasters. Chuck on some olive oil and balsamic. Hot oven for 40 mins. Serve with boiled rice. Easy!

@Thecatisboss

Bbc good food burnt Aubergine chilli is fantastic and I'm cooking it for dinner tonight.

This absolutely. It also freezes well so you can prepare it in advance.

Pasta bake with lots of roasted peppers, courgettes, tomatoes, garlic and basil, topped with cheese (Cheddar or ricotta are nice alternatives) is quite easy.

Beware cheese - check it’s suitable for vegetarians.

Porridge for breakfast is good and cheap, topped with seeds, dried fruit and honey if sweetness is needed. You could also buy a couple of bags of frozen fruits (less than £2 each from Aldi) and serve them defrosted with plain yoghurt and granola. You could obviously do a fresh fruit mix if you preferred, but the defrosted frozen mix is very easy.

This is so cheap, easy and really tasty (although tone down the chilli the amount they use is ridiculous!)

www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/vegetarian-black-bean-chili-230632

I wouldn't use the Cooking on a Bootstrap website. I'm not convinced that much of her stuff is actually edible (have tried a few and been disappointed).

Agree with pp that this is a mammoth ask. I hope your guests and lovely and very grateful.
I agree that toast for breakfast is a good idea and at least one meal do jacket potatoes with beans and cheese.
Several packs of nachos, pots of salsa, loads of grated cheese + coriander, bowls of little tomatoes and mini cucumbers/ cucumber spears?
I’m a confident cook and often cook for big groups/ vegetarian and vegan but the 3 day/ all meals would have me spinning.

Ah, this is all GREAT - thank you so much !!! x

I'm thinking of avoiding products like 'veggie sausages' as I assume that they are not very nice, not all vegetarians like fake sausages and, for 10, it might get expensive ?

I just found out that 2 of the 10 DO eat meat and 'don't fancy 3 days of vegetarian food'. Well, I'm not cooking actual meat on the side and being careful with utensils etc so that the vegetarian guests are okay.

So, i might buy a decent cooked ham / some salami and put it in on a separate plate and those that cant manage 3 days without meat can eat that! Then the veggie guests dont have to smell sausages etc

Dont mean to sound grumpy.
Lots of these ideas and recipes sound delicious.
I wish i had time to practice them that's all.

Well, I'm off to Aldi for some ingredients tomorrow and might be able to batch cook a couple tomorrow afternoon before the home catering begins on Monday.

I know people do this effortlessly all the time :(
It's confidence I think. And practice.
I hope to choose some of my favourites to have at least 2 purely veggie meals a week for my teens from now on :)

OP I second no stuffed peppers - as served in many places in the UK they are an abomination and nothing like the original-countries' recipes.

Secondly, no Quorn or Linda McCartney style fakes. They are also - IMHO - disgusting. And also IMHO indigestible.

People become vegetarians for ethical reasons but ALSO - and this is important - because they LIKE vegetables and grains etc. So I don't see the need to hide the taste of those in heavy chilli etc/ often clunky versions of meat dishes. This is just my opinion. Obviously, other people must cook what they like to eat. Having said that, as a vegetarian, I'd be delighted and very grateful and appreciative if you served your geusts:

• breakfast - fruit (raw or gently stewed), NICE bread (wholegrain/seeded etc), full fat plain yoghurt, thin slices of cheese, carrot sticks/raw pepper slices. PLUS perhaps oats/porrridge/cereal if they requested it (personally, I don't like those). Or an egg - so easy to cook, and so quick (in water or olive oil), in lots of different ways.

• lunch - soup and NICE bread or oatcakes and cheese. Or hummus and carrot or cucumber or pepper or celery sticks plus another vegetarian veg dish/dip, raw veg sticks, plus olives plus decent green salad and olive oil dressing plus another raw salad or two (the Herald in Scotland had a great raw beetrood/carrot/peanut salad the other day). Or baked potatoes and coleslaw and grated cheese plus, perhaps, tomatoey beans (all vastly nicer if home made). Plus decent youghurt and fruit. Plus cake.

• tea - I can't help, because it's not a meal I eat. But delicate sandwiches - cucumber, salted tomato very thinly sliced, egg and cress etc - should all fit the bill.

• evening meal. Nothing wrong with a quiche and a veg-filled salad, or pasta/pesto, or risotto, or the very nice aubergine and Ottolenghi recipes referred to by previous posters. Or nicely-made cauliflower cheese. Or veg casserole. Or a stir-fry, using fresh ingredients (look at a proper Chinese website). The point is that all these need fresh veg ingredients and to be accompanied by quality bread/rice/pasta/potatoes etc plus other vege side dishes or salads.

All this is not difficult. It just means ignoring the vast majority of ready-made rubbish that is marketed as vegetarian and relying on decent raw ingredients, which are usually much cheaper that 'manufactured' alternatives.

Am all too well aware that this is going to sound very critical and/or patronising. That is HONESTLY not my intention.

Ok - do you have time to prep ahead? And freeze some stuff?

@florascotia2

Not patronising at ALL.

I think my lack of experience and panic comes across clearly so all input v welcome! x

Glad I was thinking along right lines re 'veggie sausages/ burgers' etc

What freezes best?

Cooked pasta (unless lasagna) surely just goes gloopy?

I hope the 'family member' and 10 people are going to be helping with the cooking, it's an awful lot for you to do on your own, OP.

Can they at least contribute cakes/snacks?

Love @Rosieredapples idea of theming the nights. That way you can do a few cheap sides that go and everyone should like at least one component.

So yes, I'd do:

Mexican night: Black bean this recipe enchiladas, chopped lime salad, nachos (like the 18p ones from Tesco), a couple of cheap dips.

Italian night: Big pasta bake bulked out with veg, green salad dressed in lemon and olive oil, garlic bread (nice and filling!).

Indian night: Veg and chickpea curry – couple of those paste pots and a couple of cans of coconut milk. Basmati rice. Kachumber salad (lots of cucumber and tomato chopped up with coriander and lime juice). Pick up some naan and poppadoms.

Breakfasts: cereal boxes, toast with jam/pb, greek yoghurt with honey and fruit

Lunches: Cheese sarnies, crisps and fruit (apples, bananas, kiwis). Or hummus and falafel wraps. Pizzas and homemade wedges.

Can you do sundaes for desserts? I reckon puds would be the most expensive bit for 10 people, but with sundaes you could pick up a few tubs of ice cream and some toppings/sauces/flakes or whatever. Even pour espresso over ice cream for an Italian night and stick in some biscotti?!

The rest wouldn't be too expensive, veg and beans are relatively cheap!

God I'm hungry now!

I don't think the above would be too expensive