Vegan dinner party recipes

[Nosleepforthismum]

Vegan friends coming over for dinner tomorrow night and need some inspiration.

We’ve done a few things before, vegan chilli, Dahl and flatbreads, vegan cottage pie, nut roast and kind of running out of vegan things I feel confident to cook. Any help would be really appreciated!

Large portobello mushrooms - 1 per person
Bit of brandy (optional but check its vegan)
Olive oil
Jar of truffle paste from a posh deli
Pack of pre-rolled pastry - ideally puff - check ingredients, some pastries are "all butter" but many that don't specifically mention butter in the big title are vegan.

Each mushroom, take off the stalk, lightly score the gulls with a sharp knife, drizzle on a little brandy and a little olive oil, spread the truffle paste over.
Place on a square of pastry and bring the 4 corners loosly up to meet near where the stalk was, leaving unsealed slits where the pastry doesn't quite meet so that steam escapes.

Bake for 20-25 mins

Serve with green veg

(Hmm. Truffles are certainly not animals but apparently some vegans will object to eating them in case dogs or pigs were used as working animals to track down their scent. Recipe also works with any other nice strong-flavoured paste eg tapenade)

Great suggestion from PP, but what about pudding? My daughter's partner is vegan and I struggle with what to do for dessert.

I often do Middle Eastern ish with vegans - houmous, baba ganoush, olives, stuffed peppers, flatbreads, falafel, tabbouleh, roasted vegetables, roasted chickpeas, cous cous salad, a roasted cauliflower. It can be nice to let people make up their own filled flatbreads - tahini sauce / chilli sauce too.

often a mix of bought in bits and bits I make myself - I might zhush up the dips with garnishes

Puddings - coconut milk rice pudding is my go to. I use this recipe: https://www.sainsburysmagazine.co.uk/recipes/desserts/coconut-rice-pudding

I always think Mexican food is a winner. Everyone builds their own! You could even do a meat filler for non vegans. A nice vegan one is something like butternut squash and black beans in a fajita seasoning, maybe with some onions and peppers too. Tortilla wraps, rice, guacamole, salsa all vegan. You could even do some corn on the cob for the side (with vegan spread!).

Dessert…. Vegan churros with cinnamon sugar and dark chocolate for dipping.

Crikey, that sounds amazing. Definitely pinning this to the recipe book even if it’s not used tomorrow night depending on their truffle hunting views! Thank you

I use the Green Roasting Tin book a lot.

I know, I find vegan puds are a nightmare unless you know what you are doing. I have to confess I always suggest my vegan friends bring pudding when they say “can we bring anything?”. Happy to provide everything else but I know my baking skills (even without making it vegan) are not one of my strengths!

Also sounds lovely! I had a rose harissa hummus the other day out which I was hoping to copy with some flat bread for a starter but I could possibly do a bigger spread as you say.

YES. I am all about the Mexican food. Sadly, our friends did a Mexican night for us last time we saw them so that is off the cards this time around.

Jane's Patisserie has a few good vegan baking recipes - my vegan friends have given them the thumbs up (chocolate cupcakes, chocolate cake & brownies).
You can also buy some very good vegan cakes now too.

Rebel recipes do really tasty stews etc I like roast cauliflower and tomato and peppers za'atar stew on red lentils and tomatoes

Bit late but Onion tarte tatin nice. Need vegan pastry and vegan cheese. Or do mezze.

Middle Eastern is good or a Indian feast.

A couple of flavours of Booja Booja ice cream and a nice big fruit platter. Also some vegan chocolate truffles to hand around with coffee. It's low effort and usually popular. Otherwise there are lots of vegan brownie recipe online . Served with vegan vanilla ice cream, maybe some choc sauce. Fruit crumble is easily veganised. Used violife block.unstead of butter and serve with Alpro custard, or Birds custard made up with plant milk. Also I've been known to stock up on vegan Magnums and ask who fancies one of those after dinner. Lovely that you're taking the trouble to make something lovely for your vegan friends

For pudding try baked plums - sprinkle brown sugar, cinnamon and a little brandy (or alcohol of choice or orange juice) over halved stoned plums, bake until soft, around 20-30 minutes serve with vegan ice cream

https://www.mailplus.co.uk/edition/food/you-food/300859/bosh-roast-sweet-potato-tagine

This is lovely. Anything by Bosh is great actually

https://lovingitvegan.com/vegan-chocolate-tart/#recipe

For those looking for pudding inspiration this is amazing. You could get a ready made pastry case (if a vegan one exists) and just add filling too which would be even easier.

@cherryassam sorry to barge in on the thread but would this rice pudding be ok for a dairy free 1yr old? Really wanted to do rice pudding as he's been having the dairy free Ella's kitchen ones but can't for the life of me find an adult one. I'd love to make my own as he enjoys it so much

Can’t see why not! Less sugar if you’re worried about that. You should be able to copy the ingredients from the back of the EK packet

I’m making a big vegetable and chickpea tagine with jewelled couscous tomorrow, followed by this cake (which I haven’t done before!)

https://haricoco.com/orange-almond-cake/

Yes I can’t see why not! I don’t know about how much sugar DC of that age are meant to have - it’s quite sweet so I think you could easily get away with a good bit less sugar.

@cherryassam @ReeseWitherfork thanks so much. I'll use as little brown sugar as I can get away with though I imagine the banana fried would lend some sweetness too

@cherryassam @ReeseWitherfork bloody app not charging my name🙄