Vegetarian meal help

[Dazzza]

I’ve been asked to help cook a meal for 6 people a few of which are veggie.  Being a complete and utter carnivore the whole concept is a bit alien to me it.  I like a sprinkling of boiled chicken on my crunchy nut cornflakes in the morning so a main meal is going to be a challenge.

Anyway, fortunately it’s just an informal affair but I’ve just been black balled on just doing “veggie” sausage toad in the hole, lasagne or bolognaise so I need to come up with something relatively interesting.  I can’t be arsed with cooking separate dishes with and without meat either.

Any suggestions like a good curry recipe?

Cheers Ears

[Fred Elliot]

Oh no !!!!!!!!!!

[Doore]

I don't have a recipe but look up paneer for currys - tis a lovely indian cheese that works well.

Either that, or find a decent spinach and ricotta cannelloni recipe.

Cheese is great.

[land_of_bo]

Give 'em a fucking carrot.

[Simon Pieman]

Mushroom stroganoff is a very nice meal. I’d even pick it over the beef equivalent on occasion. Pretty easy to make as well and if you get a few types of mushrooms you can talk some fluff of how you chose particular ones to accentuate particular flavours.

My tip would be to lightly coat the mushrooms in paprika before you begin to cook them.

[Chubbs]

i'd avoid doing a risotto if you've never done one before, they take a lot of care and attention and can go very wrong with not done properly.

Like si said, maybe a mushroom stroganof, or one of my favorites its creamed mushrooms with tagiatelle pasta. which is just a load of different types of mushrooms (chestnut, oyster, shittake etc) in most supermarkets they will do a veriaty pack fry them off in a little butter (yes butter, works better with mushrooms than oil) add a bit of salt pepper to season and then a pot of single cream (can replace a bit of the cream with milk if its too rich) then plop ontop of some tagiatelle pasta

[Chubbs]

or as you mentioned a curry, just find any curry recipie that you like the sounds of and use that as the base, i regulary use meat curries as the basis of my recipie and just leave the meat out and use veg (peppers/mushrooms/potatoes/carots/ basicly anything you want)

or even a lentil curry, which is very easy

[jonny72]

I've got a good recipe for a better veggie sausage toad in the hole, made with vegetables instead of sausages.

I've also got a kick ass recipe for a lentil pate, which should impress your veggie mates.

You might be best of getting hold of a veggie cook book and picking something from that, or browsing one of the online recipe websites.

[blah blah]

My wife is veggie and when we have people round for dinner, I find it much easier to find something that you can make that is the same for everyone, except for some added meat in the carnivores portion. Curries work well (any chicken/lamb curry recipe can be done using quorn or veg instead of the meat), or try a morrocan tagine - you can make the veg/sauce for everyone then add some pan fried lamb chunks right at the end to the meaty half, serve with cous cous, job done.

[nevillew]

Dazzza,    Vegetarian chill is a good shout - there's a good recipe on the BBC good food site. It's got lentils in it, so there will be a wind factor, but It's been well received by carnivores as well.

[RJack]

Beans on toast For The Win.

No messing around, cheap & easy 

[sheepshagger]

Surely what this gives is an opportunity to show them the error of their ways ?

Steak - all round 

[Dazzza]

Surely what this gives is an opportunity to show them the error of their ways ?

Steak - all round 

I'm tempted!

Thanks all there are some great ideas there and I'll give it some thought.  I think I'm leaning towards a curry as the base "onion gravy" is the same for pretty much any Indian recipie and I can then play around with the meat replacements.

[Arriba]

i'd go for the chilli.
the best chilli i've ever had was a veggie one.
pretty easy to make and really nice

[Reg Smeeton]

 Pulses are good for veggies and carnivores....require a bit of pre preparation, although tinned are OK.

 So for example, you can make a tidy mousakka out of red kidney beans....you can stuff veg with butter beans. Make croquettes out of chick peas, or use them to make hummus for a starter.

 Chick peas are good for felafel...nice and spicy.  You can make a sort of shepherd's pie using aduki beans...or just create a dhal curry, out of mung beans/lentils etc.