I have a friend coming over for dinner who is totally vegan. I've decided to use this as a challenge and create the whole dinner and dessert vegan even though other non vegans are joining us - however I want to make sure everybody enjoys the meal and doesn't feel hungry or like they have missed out.

I've always served meat dishes especially at dinner so I'm struggling to figure out what to cook

I'm after suggestions for entrees, mains and dessert (obviously all without animal products)

Thanks!

Asian dishes lend themselves well to vegan diets, even thai curries, as they use coconut milk, just ensure if using ready made pastes they don't include fish/shrimp paste. You could do fresh summer rolls to start and a mango sorbet and tropical fruit for dessert.

My husband invited a couple to dinner a few years ago. We were at a function sitting at the same table. It was a Japanese inspired evening and all they seemed to eat was the rice and a little lettuce. Wouldn't touch the miso soup. I asked why and they said they were Vegan. Oh dear. I didn't know much about veganism so brushed up and inquired if they liked vegetable curry and the answer was yes. Alas my curry had kumara, potatoes, onions and garlic and they told me they were Jain Vegans. Live and learn. Plenty of leftovers.

It is one of the most rigorous forms diet on the Indian subcontinent and beyond. The Jain cuisine is completely vegetarian and also excludes onions, potatoes, brinjals (eggplants) and garlic, similar to the shojin-ryori Buddhist cuisine of Japan. My couple also avoided any root vegetables.

Oh my God, good luck with that lol.

I make a great Spanish soup, Olla Gitana, with chick peas, beans, pumpkin, saffron and almonds that would fit as a first course (or as a main if the meal is very informal). Let me know if you would like the recipe.

TPANDAV Wrote:
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> I make a great Spanish soup, Olla Gitana, with
> chick peas, beans, pumpkin, saffron and almonds
> that would fit as a first course (or as a main if
> the meal is very informal). Let me know if you
> would like the recipe.

TPANDAV, please post. I for one would be very interested. I am not vegan but it sounds a tasty and filling soup.

Olla Gitana

serves 4

250g chick peas, soaked 24 hours
2.5 litre water
250g green beans (sliced) or broad beans
150g pumpkin flesh in 2 cm cubes
3 pears peeled, diced
salt and pepper
100 ml olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tsp sweet paprika (not smoked)
2 ripe tomatoes chopped
1 slice bread, crusts removed and diced (or 2 tab ground almonds)
2 cloves garlic, sliced
12 almonds
pinch saffron threads
2 tab white wine vinegar

Drain chick peas, put in large saucepan with water, bring to boil, skim, simmer 1 hour.
Add beans, pumpkin and pears, salt and pepper, continue to simmer 1 - 2 hours until everything is very soft.

Picada: Soak saffron in a tab. of boiling water. Heat 50 ml oil in a frying pan and fry almonds over medium heat until golden. Remove almonds and retain oil in pan. Add bread and garlic to pan and fry until dark gold. Put almonds, bread and garlic in mortar or small food processer & pound to a coarse paste. Add saffron and water and pound again. Add vinegar.

Sofrito: In same frying pan fry onion in 50 ml oil until golden, add tomatoes and cook 5 minutes.

5 minutes before serving add sofrito to soup and stir a few minutes. Add picada and stir to combine well.

Check seasoning, serve hot

I think the suggestions so far are great.

I think rice paper rolls followed by a Thai curry followed by a fruit dessert would be delicious.

No fish sauce in the curry though!

Wow Kone, They probably should have offered to bring a dish.... who would ever think of eliminating so many veggies from a vegan diet!

Karen Wrote:
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> Wow Kone, They probably should have offered to
> bring a dish.... who would ever think of
> eliminating so many veggies from a vegan diet!

Well, Karen, we were invited to their place for dinner a month later. I am unable to eat soy based products and advised her of that and why. She served a vegan Bobotie, minus the egg and dried fruit, made with tofu: Uncle Ben's plain rice; salad bag of greens and a bottle of oil free dressing plonked on the table; dessert was a bought chocolate vegan ice-cream. It was the most tasteless, dinner we have ever eaten and gone down in history as the worst.

KONE, it sounds a very puritanical diet, and very limiting, I don't know but I wonder if it is religious, it sounds like a cleansing diet.

Some people truly do view food as fuel though - although I suspect not many on this forum

Jainism is an Indian religion which espouses harmlessness and non-violence towards all living things. The extreme dietary restrictions result from not wanting to harm even a microbe, hence the avoidance of root vegetables as well as the more usual vegan avoidances.

I've just looked it up and here's a better explanation of the avoidance of root vegetables (and mushrooms):

"Jains make considerable efforts not to injure plants in everyday life as far as possible. Jains only accept such violence inasmuch as it is indispensable for human survival, and there are special instructions for preventing unnecessary violence against plants.[30][31][32] Strict Jains don’t eat root vegetables such as potatoes, onions, roots and tubers, because such root vegetables are considered ananthkay. Ananthkay means one body, but containing countless lives. A regular vegetable such as cabbage has number of leaves and lives as could be counted by a layman. However, a root vegetable such as potato, though from the looks of it is one article, is said to contain multiple lives ('ekindriya') in it. Also, tiny life forms are injured when the plant is pulled up and because the bulb is seen as a living being, as it is able to sprout.[33][34][35] Also, consumption of most root vegetables involves uprooting and killing the entire plant, whereas consumption of most terrestrial vegetables doesn't kill the plant (it lives on after plucking the vegetables or it was seasonally supposed to wither away anyway).
Mushrooms, fungus and yeasts are forbidden because they grow in non-hygienic environments and may harbour other life forms."

My Jains, thankfully returned to US now, as we were practically neighbours, made an exception at Thanks Giving which they viewed as a treat. One time they both had colds they couldn't shift and she confided she had cooked an egg for each of them.

Kone - I have never heard of a Jain Vegetarian ! Wow - what a struggle every meal must be to make

Thanks for the suggestions - they are great! Wish me luck

No Ingrid, I don't believe it was a struggle for these people to employ as a lifestyle as they had no interest in food in the first place although they dived headfirst into a loaf of bread I made once carving off huge chunks and shoved them straight into their hot little mouth without the olive oil butter stuff I bought specially for them. It was very unsettling to watch. Dry bread down the tonsils. Way to go. One of my stepsons has a new woman 20 years younger than he. She was a chubby chops and had her gallbladder removed when he told her she was a little fat for him, so now she is unable to eat any fat and is looking very lean on it despite having a baby in October. Now has the figure again of a 20 year old who has never had a child and both ma and pa are delighted as - goodness gracious me - a tubby woman in their world is one to be given the heave ho to asap. Move on.No such thing as true love anymore take it or leave it love me as I am sort of stuff. Nope, gotta be perfect in the physicalness. So glad this isn't my world.

Well, what an interesting thread; I've learned a lot about Vegans. I had assumed that there was only one type of Vegan. I just can't understand why some people go to such extremes in their lives. Full marks, Kone, I could not have coped catering for those particular guests.
TPANDAV thank you for posting your Olla Gitana recipe. I will be trying it very soon. I love dishes with chickpeas. I must echo what Dawn said. You seem to be a very sure and adventurous cook and any recipes of yours that I have tried have become favourites..