Your best vegetarian centrepiece

[Pippu]

I have four vegetarians and four meat eaters at Christmas. I've made stuff in the past, or paid a fortune for a ready made disappointment. I want to make something this year, ideally a nut roast that has flavour and sticks together. Actually, two dishes would be good because I know the meat eaters will dive in.
Someone posted a chestnut nut roast which sounded delicious, I did a trial run and it was a disaster. Would make a passable stuffing but was just mush. They are not vegans so happy to use eggs and dairy.

I absolutely adore nut roast. Love it. I make an exceptional one that happens to be vegan. It freezes brilliantly so I make it in silicon muffin cases and have one with a roast every few months. Delicious hot it cold.

I wouldn’t give you anything for a bought one as they’re rarely any good and I can’t be doing with dried fruit in savoury food.

Delia’s parsnip roulade with sage and onion stuffing. It’s rich, full of flavour, feels special and works with the other components of a Christmas meal and is my favourite Christmas centrepiece I’ve made myself. It reheats well, so can can be made in advance and even frozen ahead of time.

This year I’m going to try kale strata by Ottolenghi which sounds amazing, though I haven’t made it before.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/moroccan-spiced-pie

This is delicious

Mine loves quorn roasts. Preferably a whole one to himself. (The actual roasts - not fillets etc. and not the ham one).

This is delicious. I've made it for the veggie husband a few times.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/festive-squash-jalousie

Not sure what we'll have this year. But I did a cashew cream, garlic, mushroom, chestnut and white wine filo pie as a vegan side. And it was devoured in short shrift by everyone. Use shop bought pastry.

I'm a long-time (43 years) non-meat eater (fish is fine for some illogical reason) and I used to love the Quorn roasts and so on. But since they started blazoning HAM or BEEF on the packaging, I find them far less appealing. FFS, let Quorn be Quorn!

Recipe please - you have all the right priorities @AnneLovesGilbert

I often do a stuffing loaf, 3 layers of different stuffings in a loaf tin. Or top big mushrooms with stuffing and roast. Also, a massive broccoli cheese always goes down well!

Is it just me or does anyone else find the bbc good food links just take you to the home page? The name is the recipes being suggested sounds lovely but when I click in via the url I can't see them

This is on my list to try for my newly vegan daughter - whipped tofu sounds good and heard this chef on the table manners podcast:

www.ft.com/content/cc58f06b-2214-4f38-a83d-386d946cb999

Anything that is basically a nut roast is going to feel like stuffing.

I make a multi-layer centrepiece in a bundt tin where a nut roast mix is just one element in a layered arrangement of favourite flavours. I will roast slices of aubergine and red pepper, marinade portobello mushrooms in truffle paste and include layers of good cheese and build it up with the nut roast merely being the glue that mortars these treats together.

Also make sure you have a really good veggie gravy.

The only veggie here hates gravy so I only need to make the turkey one.

Mine doesn't like mushrooms or chesnuts so I'm doing the cauliflower wellington above with caramelised onions instead of the duxelle and a cheese sauce.

It is delicious. Does it go with gravy, sprouts etc, though? We've not had it at Christmas. I used bought hummus which cut down the work a bit.

I love this, it looks better in a circular dish and if you make the filo stand up a bit more to look fancy https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/20/herb-pie-recipe-vegetarian-ottolenghi

i like nut roasts but don’t feel I need one at Christmas as it’s similar to stuffing and you have that. This is one I like best: https://amp.theguardian.com/food/2022/dec/07/how-to-make-nut-roast-recipe-felicity-cloake-masterclass

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cranberry-lentil-bake
https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/vegetarian-nut-wellington/
I've made both of these and both worked well, no mushrooms!!

I'm making that! Bookmarked! Sounds lovely and I adore aubergine.

Oh that looks really nice, my DH,DD and I are vegetarians , DH really hates Quorn Roast but this looks festive and solid

I'd need to do half with halloumi and half with feta as DD doesn;t like feta .
I may have bought a bottle of pomegranate molasses in preparation.....

I love a good nut roast as do all four of the vegetarians I am catering for. Unfortunately it's true there are many poor ones around.
Of course I will do lots of lovely side dishes as well but I don't need advice with them.
I feel that Christmas dinner needs a focal point or centrepiece whether meat or vegetarian. The meat eaters will get turkey which I loathe but they have asked for. Seems only fair to do something special for the vegetarians as well.

So many great suggestions on here. I'm going to practise a few.

Gallons of gravy is compulsory here, I will make two versions, I make a decent veggie gravy with caramalised onions.

We’re an entirely vegetarian household and this is pretty much what we do, minus the Yorkshire puddings, which as a non-Brit, I’ve never understood the point of. Centring delicious side dishes is the key in our house — no ‘centrepiece’ needed.

I’ve seldom met anyone who actually likes nut roast, and I’ve been vegetarian for 30 years, and the best bits of Christmas dinner are not the meat.

Saw this in their magazine yesterday and thought it looked delicious, and a bit of a twist on the usual veggie Wellington
https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/squash-cranberry-and-mushroom-wellington.html

I'm a fan of vegetarian haggis at Christmas.
Pastry things like wellingtons are a bit too stodgy for me.

I made that last year. Was lovely.

The mention of vegetarian haggis just reminded me of this ... veggie haggis wellington which I made years ago and was really nice ...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=D2WsCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT434&lpg=PT434&dq=vegetarian+haggis+wellington+gizzi+erskine&source=bl&ots=9srujceh4&sig=ACfU3U155_P6-nKdMdUjUGyyUgnNQsP2iCw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiAgeLGtM6CAxX1SEEAHTK3AmYQ6AF6BAghEAI