help - vegan coming for dinner.

[HufflepuffRavenclaw]

Having friends over for dinner next week. Woman of the couple is quite faddy in her eating. Over the time we have know them she has been gluten-free for about 6 months, abandoned that and then gave up alcohol completely for about a year, stopped doing that and then cut out sugar, was also a pescetarian for a while. Latest is that she is vegan.

I am not a vegan and have zero interest in vegan food/cooking. I am looking for ideas which are easily adapted to vegan diets - so for example I could do tomato/mozzarella/basil and crusty bread for a starter and use vegan "cheese" for her.

Think I may buy a dessert for her as any decent pud has to have cream and butter in it.

Any ideas?

@faffadoodledo it was more the comments about pasta and chilli not being good enough for a dinner party and more like weeknight food. I saw that as 'not impressive enough' for a dinner party. I think she likes cooking impressive dinner party meals because she knows she's good at it and enjoys the praise, not that she's actually bothered about her guests actually enjoying the evening.

I would have thought that she would enjoy the challenge of seving a vegan meal that no one would never know was vegan.

@Quinoawoman you are kidding yourself if you think anyone can create a vegan meal which "nobody knew was vegan".

And despite the "showing off" accusations the social convention with these friends is that we make meals which are treat rather than everyday. We are not eating a three course homecooked meal here every night. Put a wee bit of effort in. More than you would making a pasta bake on a Wednesday night.

It's ok @HufflepuffRavenclaw your starter shows you're not aiming to show off to anyone! Mixed messages maybe

Hey would you let us know what you do eventually cook? Or serve? Or buy or whatever?

Well I have just spent over a fiver on two slices of some vegan cheesecake thing from Waitrose and a pot of "plant based cream".

You sound very pleased with your purchases @HufflepuffRavenclaw 😐

Just glad it won't be me eating the "plant based cream", Faff.

And I won't be posting pix of the rest of it, or a menu, so that the same posters who have so kindly taken the time to post that i'm clearly showing off, or stuck in the 80s, or a really bad cook,or unadventurous, or just a bit thick can have another pop by getting their thesaurus out and finding as many synonyms for "vile" as they can.

Will be sure to start another thread when friend hitches herself to whatever the next foodie faddy bandwagon is. I'm betting caveman diet or similar.

It's really not difficult to cook something that is vegan and people don't realise. Maybe not everyone has the appropriate cooking skills to manage it, I don't know. But it's absolutely possible.

Back in the day when I was vegetarian, I cooked a vegan meal for friends. One of them looked at me aghast after trying it and asked if I was eating meat. I wasn't - but neither was she.

I think she likes cooking impressive dinner party meals because she knows she's good at it and enjoys the praise,

I admit that I do that BUT, I take my guests' dietary preferences/requirements into consideration as well.
A competent cook would be able to rustle up a decent vegan meal as well as a non vegan meal.

We had a mostly vegan Christmas dinner, but as DH and I love pigs in blankets we had those with it. DD is vegetarian and made a delicious mushroom wellington which just happened to be vegan as were all the vegetable accompaniments.

People are being so rude. I really dislike this kind of virtue signalling - you're not a better person if you like vegan food!

It's really not difficult to cook something that is vegan and people don't realise. Maybe not everyone has the appropriate cooking skills to manage it, I don't know. But it's absolutely possible.

Nice wee dig there, Annoyed. Nothing inappropriate about my cooking skills. You really can tell that fake meat / quorn is not meat and you're kidding yourself if you think it's indistinguishable.

But again - right from the start it was fairly clear that I was not looking for vegan meal suggestions. Maybe not everyone has the appropriate reading comprehension skills, I don't know.

You really can tell that fake meat / quorn is not meat and you're kidding yourself if you think it's indistinguishable.

I agree, but vegan food doesn't have to be fake meat or imitation dairy. My daughter's mushroom Wellington was amazing.

If you're not even going to try it, how on earth can you keep claiming that vegan food is so terrible?

@Laurdo took anyone to mean person. Don’t care about the animals.

@Hundredpercenttraitor nonsense. A healthy balanced diet including meat killed no one. Those with heart disease aren’t getting it from eating meat alone.

@RampantIvy , I think it's the 'Vegan Food' label.
You could eat something like Chips and beans and broccoli or Saag aloo and pilau rice and not think of it as being 'Vegan Food' , or Eggs, chips and beans and not think of it as 'Vegetarian Food'.

I'm not a vegan, but definitely think that there is something called 'Vegetarian Food', and I think it's something made up by people who think they know what vegetarians eat. Hence restaurant menus always being extremely dull.

I agree with you @KirstenBlest.

Loads of foods and snacks are "accidentally vegan", but not labelled as vegan and don't attract the same prejudice. For example some pot noodles, Jacob's cream crackers, Bourbon biscuits, Fox's party rings, Oreo biscuits, Jammie Dodgers, Kettle chips, Tyrrells crsips, various wines etc. Quite a list here.

Meat contains carcinogens. Pretty sure cancer kills quite a lot of people.

@RampantIvy @KirstenBlest 'vegan' food has also moved on massively in the last few years. Quorn does not taste like chicken (neither is it vegan for the most part) but Beyond Burgers and mince are the bomb - almost indistinguishable from the real thing, but many still turn their noses up because they once ate quorn and didn't like it.

Off topic, but I'm into language... It's interesting how vegans (and again, I'm not one) are often labelled faddy or picky for not eating meat. But the meat eaters who turn their noses up ostensibly vegan food aren't

It's the lack of meat in the diet, stifles comprehension.

<runs>

@Quinoawoman , I like some of the Wicked and plant-based stuff from Tesco. The 'roasts' are usually good.

I like Quorn sausages, but not the other plant based ones. Not keen in general on quorn other than the sausages, and a lot of the vegan stuff seems hard to digest. (others have agreed with me)
I eat soya chunks sometimes - they're a quick way to add substance/protein.

I eat a lot of meals that are plant-based anyway, but they are food that happen to be made from only plants, not deliberately vegan.

My gripe about the 'Vegan Food' and 'Vegetarian Food' is that it tends to stray into nut roast, risotto, wellington, butternut, mushroom, beetroot, caramelised onion, goat's cheese repetition on every menu or the veg chilli, veg curry, thai green curry, etc.

The people claiming to not like vegan food probably would happily eat a baked potato with baked beans or beans on toast without thinking it was vegan.

I was going to suggest mushroom wellington because jus roll puff pastry is vegan and that is what I make for DH.

OP, you sound a bit out of sorts tbh. People are mostly trying to help. But why ask for vegan ideas then reject vegan ideas?

@Laurdo, black peppercorns contain carcinogens. Moderate consumption is ok.
I think that well-reared meat eaten occasionally is fine. The vast amounts of poor quality meat eaten in western diets is probably unhealthy.
Organically reared meat sourced locally is probably better from the planet than things like jackfruit that are shipped/airfreighted from the other side of the world.

It wasn't a dig? It was an observation. You don't want to cook vegan food, so maybe it's not something that you are experienced in.
I am definitely better at cooking things I enjoy eating. It's not a huge stretch to suggest that might be the case for most people.

I'm not kidding myself that people think fake meat is like the real thing. But there are plenty of vegan meals where people don't miss the meat, because they are so good. It's not about pretending it's meat, it's simply about making great food.

Can't possibly be that. a) I didn't give vegan meal suggestions and b) I'm not vegan . Yet that dog seemed to be aimed at me.