Christmas veggie main

[Goodwitch9]

Any suggestions for a vegetarian centrepiece to serve at Christmas lunch. Has to be nut free. Thanks!

Mushroom cobbler
French onion soup galette
Carrot tarte tatin
the problem with asking for vegetarian suggestions and not much guidance is that, in my experience, the show stopping vegetarian dishes have a star ingredient that is ultimately a bit divisive - mushrooms, aubergine, goats cheese, beetroot..., or are you just an incredibly unfussy group?!

Not fussy, hence why I asked for a range of suggestions! In the past I've done a Rose Elliot nut roast with herb stuffing but I can't do that this year as someone has a severe nut allergy.

In veggie and have tried a few things in prep for Christmas but nothing has beaten the quorn roast yet! Depends on whether the veggie you are serving enjoys fake meat or prefers something a bit more plant based

*I'm veggie

Olive magazine recipe for squash and ricotta pastry wreath.

Easy to make and very much a centrepiece.

That carrot tarte tatin looks lovely. Following with interest. Basic Bisto gravy is vegan apparently. Somebody check me on that assertion!

Yes it does look lovely but contains nuts unfortunately!

Do I have to subscribe to see the galette recipe Summa?

There are hundreds of nut free lentil roasts on the internet. Or look at Thanksgiving recipes and do something like that without meat. A rich sauce, and gravy really make something like these a delicious meal and there are really good dairy free sauce recipes

Sausage plait www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/vegan-sausage-plait/ or mushroom bourguignon with parsnip rosti topping www.coop.co.uk/recipes/mushroom-bourguignon-and-parsnip-rosti

I recently made a parsnip gratin that was loved by all. I made it in a big dish. Could be made with all sorts of root veg or layered to look more colourful.

Which is your tried and tested lentil roast recipe Hoppity?

I made this without the nuts and it was gorgeous https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/nut_roast_38249
Instead of freekah or spelt grains I used a pouch of green lentils as that's all I could find.

I've made this and it was absolutely excellent. Contributing on the offchance that the nut allergy doesn't extend to chestnuts, but if it does you could probably just leave the chestnuts out and up the quantity of lentils and sweet potato/squash. Very Christmassy in its colours and flavours and would go well with the classic Christmas accompaniments. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/jewelled-squash-chestnut-mushroom-wreath I didn't make the wreath shape and left out the sage leaves as we didn't have it at Christmas. I divided it between two loaf tins and froze one (which worked extremely well). I also didn't use flaxseeds as we are not vegan (or even vegetarian). There is a tip in the comments about how many eggs to use instead for those who are happy to eat egg, so I followed that. I used a mixture of squash and sweet potato rather than just squash.

I have also made this in the past and it tasted good and looked lovely. Quite a lot of work but that can be done in stages and most of the elements freeze well. Obviously the recipe as given contains a nut roast layer. I think that could easily be tweaked to become a lentil roast layer. I didn't make the puff pastry, I used bought. Filo would also work, probably.

https://bensfarmshop.co.uk/recipes/rainbow-goodwill-pie/

dammit seems so, NYT have put all their old podcast episodes behind a paywall too, so frustrating, it's been happening more and more with various recipe websites. I did write it out though so here it is.

I love the quorn roast. It's just great. So great that now the non veggies on the family prefer it over the meat!

Thanks Summa!

Not sure if it is nut free but we had the Aldi no beef wellington a few weeks ago and it was delicious.

You can try a cauliflower roast:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/spiced-cauliflower-roast

Or a butternut and gorgonzola bake.

I made Delia's cheese and parsnip roulade three years ago and loved it. It's meant to have hazelnuts on the outside, but I'm pretty sure I skipped those for myself because I'm not wild on hazelnuts and it didn't seem like it was missing anything. I felt it went really well with the rest of the Christmas dinner accompaniments, which I feel like some recipes, although delicious, don't fit well with a Christmas meal.

Also, my slightly unethical tip to get around the NYT paywall is that pasting the link in the Wayback Machine more often than not will bring up an unblocked version of the page. It's annoying because they used to have more recipes for free - and many are still on YouTube but they've put the written versions behind a paywall since. Depends on it being archived by someone, so not foolproof but works for the recipe in this thread for example.

web.archive.org/web/20201123221354/cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021593-caramelized-onion-galette

Thanks toast, the roulade looks amazing!

I forgot the Delia Smith roulade! It is very good and in my opinion absolutely delicious cold as well as hot, which is useful at Christmas. One of the things I most like about Christmas is the abundance of leftovers on Boxing Day and beyond.

This has probably been the best received..
www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables/veggie-filo-snake/

There is only a sprinkle of pistachio at the end which is easy to skip....

DH always makes Sarah Brown's Lentil Loaf and eats with roast potatoes, carrots, sprouts and peas. He has done on Boxing Day too.

Another vote for delia’s roulade - I have eaten it every Christmas for 20 years and love it. Just leave off the chopped hazelnuts and everything else is nut-free xxx