I’m looking for some inspiration really for vegie meals. Where I’m struggling is what to swap meat/fish for in a “roast” type dinner. I’m not veggie, and just as some days I really fancy a big lump of cow for dinner, some days I really don’t and it’s there I’m looking for ideas really.

Eg, I can swap roast “pork” for roasted cauliflower, which is very tasty but, on the plate looks like a plate of sides missing it’s focus – ultimately it’s “just” a plate of veg in the same way just a plate a meat would be missing stuff.

Stews, salads, curries etc all work well but as soon as there’s no sauce on/in them, it looks to be missing something.

So what’s a good vegetable replacement for the “focus” of a dinner, that isn’t swathed in sauce, some variation on a stew. (Obviously cheese fixes a multitude of sins but there’s only so much cheese I should eat)

So what’s a good vegetable replacement for the “focus” of a dinner,

I probably don’t need to point out that the easier route is try to stop thinking a dinner needs a focus.

A pie makes a good ‘focus’ to gonwith the two veg and gravy.
Many veggie versions available, olive oil or sunflower spread for the pastry if you want to go full vegan nut given that you eat cow I guess you probably aren’t averse to a bit of butter in it.

Aubergine and Lentil stew is a good one – Ottolenghi has a good recipe for this. Roasted veg and cous-cous with Feta and Harissa is another go-to – again Aubergine is the centrepiece here.

Curried cauliflower cheese in a filo pie was also outstanding

Tinned jackfruit, make sure it’s falling apart before you finish cooking it, with BBQ sauce.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/vegetarian-pie-recipes
Quite a few cheese ones but also plenty without

I just cooked a Waitrose ‘jewelled roast’ which is a variation on the nutroast, mostly chestnut, apricot and things.

Night before it was Mrs P’s lentil cottage pie. Which is phe-no-menal. Had it with a selection of buttered greens and Gaz Oakley’s gravy. Used 50/50 mashed sweet potato/mashed regular spuds to top the pie.

Easy stuff to heat and stick on the side of a roast beg + gravy dinner is Higgidy or Pieminister pie of the veggie or vegan variety.

I like the Higgidy cauli cheese and broccoli pie

And Pieminister’s Kevin Pie

Agree with comments about broadening focus from the ‘focus’. An ideal meal IMO is a harmonious blend of items and ingredients, all cooked well, and all enjoyable alone bit better together, if that makes sense. Although – being a roast-dinner-loving Brit, I (could and can and do) do without the meat, but never without perfect roast puds and a killer gravy.

Same with my favourite tadka dal, it needs a well-cooked rice dish accompaniment or (ideally coconut-flavoured) roti. Both nutritionally and taste-wise they belong together – yet need to stand alone on taste also.

I reckon chasing a meat replacement ‘focus’ is to be avoided tbh. I’m neither veggie or vegan, but most of our meals are meat free, I tend to just eat things that are nice in their own right, rather than trying to imitate meat. There is also a temptation to have cheesy stuff too when eating veggie stuff, which obviously isn’t ideal all the time.

Made some lovely sweetcorn and edamame pancakes last night, with a side salad and topped with a poached egg and sriracha.

Have a try of banana blossom.

Am I the only person for whom the thread title called to mind a joke with the punchline “you’ve played this game before?”

Sorry. You can take the boy out of the 5th form.

Anyway: there’s a thread on nut roasts which fully fit the bill (we had alongside roast pork for christmas). I like any kind of roast veg and squash goes well, can be stuffed with whatever. And spanacopita/anything with greek cheese in filopastry. There. Proper grown up answer.

but never without perfect roast spuds and a killer gravy.

Correct. Sorry for other rushed typos. Will try and post the lentil cottage pie recipe tonight/when have the time

A Mushroom Wellington makes a fine centrepiece on the table.

I really fancy a big lump of cow for dinner, some days I really don’t and it’s there I’m looking for ideas really.

Learn to source/cook/roast veg better/to higher standards and with more variety? Make the gravy recipe I linked to (Make double. Freeze some. Once sieved, use the ‘leftovers’ as bulk for for a spag bol)

Then stick a well-reviewed veggie/vegan pie in the whole mess. Can’t go wrong.

or super-easy – baste a Linda Mc 1/4 pounder in BBQ sauce, salt and pepper and then oven-roast for 12-15 minutes. It’s really good. Add horseradish and mustard as you would with meat. Serve with the veg and gravy.

or

McSween vegan haggis? Available from supermarkets. Cook the long way. Serve again with above gravy and selection of awesome veggies

or cook something other than a roast dinner? Just a thought… if looking for a change … 😉

A Mushroom Wellington makes a fine centrepiece on the table.

+1. Have been blown away with oyster and shiitaki mushrooms of late. Well-cooked they go through some kind of changes making them go from tasty to mouthwateringly delicious.

This looks good:

Mushroom Wellington with Rosemary and Pecans

We got a recipe book called the Green Roasting tin (after a recommendation on here ISTR). It’s very, very good – probably most of our meals came from it during last winter and again this winter.

Some of the recipes aren’t exactly to our pallet – some have too much cheese or salt which overbalance the meal flavour, but they are generally very good base and we just tweak the recipe a little. Again this is just a couple of the recipes we’ve tried, most of them have been bob on.

Eg, I can swap roast “pork” for roasted cauliflower, which is very tasty but, on the plate looks like a plate of sides missing it’s focus – ultimately it’s “just” a plate of veg in the same way just a plate a meat would be missing stuff.

I think if it seems like a “side” its probably more about how you are prepping the veg – chopping too much?

Cut the cauli into 1″ thick steaks and roast it – server with sides. It will provide plenty of focus. In fact it will be bigger than most steaks!

I regularly do lentils with sausages on top (much more interesting than sausages and mash IMHO). Would work fine with veggie sausages – but roast root veg kept to sausage sized pieces would work well too.

Stir fry’s, stuff cooked on kebab skewers, pasta and sauce all traditionally don’t have one big lump of meat so should work well with plenty of variety amongst the veg.

Roasted stuffed Butternut squash, it’s in the Jamie Oliver Christmas book, but also applicable as a roast centrepiece.

Tinned jackfruit…

…is **** rank 🤣

OH does a pretty cool crumbed cauli steak that goes well with chips and you can also parmo a cauli steak if you’re feeling particularly dirty 😉

Buy the “focus”. Or jazz up a bought focus (like a linda 1/4 pounder). Use your own energy on the side veg.

Make a nut roast (or a lentil loaf etc). I like this one https://www.thefullhelping.com/lentil-and-sweet-potato-loaf/ but with spices rather than thyme.

There are loads of amazing recipes on here on old veggie threads. Some are links, some are just typed in. @cougar and @malvernrider are the most reliable and prolific contributors I find.

Tinned jackfruit…

…is **** rank

@kayla1 – We were recently given some tins of this and they sit on the shelf. But what to do with it? How did you prepare and cook it (if anything so I know how not to!)? Think had some in a supermarket ready-meal once before and it tasted of nothing IIRC. These look good (but might defer to your knowledge!):

I reckon chasing a meat replacement ‘focus’ is to be avoided tbh. I’m neither veggie or vegan, but most of our meals are meat free, I tend to just eat things that are nice in their own right, rather than trying to imitate meat

Possibly poor phrasing on my part, by “replacing” meat I do mean it’s place or part in the meal not “this is almost beef”.

In terms of “focus” I’m assuming those saying they eat things nice in their own right/that work together still start from a principle ingredient and then build a meal or dish around that (eg lentil cottage pie is built around lentil or possibly potato, not the carrots and onions that go into the gravy).

What I’m looking for in terms of ideas are (for example) butternut squash, halved and shelled, dice the flesh flash in a red hot pan with shallots crushed walnuts and sunflower seeds until caramelized, move to low oven until softened. Blitz fresh parsley a little garlic a touch of lime with olive oil. Return the cooked butternut to the shell, drizzle with a little of the parsley, sprinkle with rock salt then serve. (With other nice stuff that works with that).

OTOH, butternut squash, roasted on its own the served on the plate, with the same accompaniments doesn’t look like dinner.

Really I want to get away from veg stews (in pastry or otherwise) i’m not a big fan of “wet” food what ever is in it, even beef bourguignon which I really do like I can’t get excited about more than once or twice a year.

We got a recipe book called the Green Roasting tin (after a recommendation on here ISTR)

+1 (might even have been my recommendation)

eg lentil cottage pie is built around lentil or possibly potato, not the carrots and onions that go into the gravy).

Only inasmuch as the lentils are one key component of the filling. But notsomuch as the potatoes are the key component of the topping. The soffritto (carrots, onions, celery) and gravy are also key-ingredients of the filling. And in order to have a ‘complete protein’ meal you need to eat the carbs (veg) and the protein (lentils) together. So the pie is built around the whole recipe, but the ‘bite’ comes from the lentils, veg (and beans if included) combined as does the flavour.

We do cook and eat (puy) lentils as a stand-alone foodstuff/ingredient. Just sautee some finely chopped onions, add a bayleaf, then two cups of veg stock, then a cup of those dark green speckled/puy lentils. A splash of balsamic vinegar and/or soy sauce. Cook until liquid is absorbed/lentils are soft and hey presto.

If you don’t want pies or anything with gravy/sauce in it then there are loads of nut roast recipes as mentioned. As with all recipes, some are awfully bad, some are awfully delicious. I’m not a big nut-roast fan but I like roasted nuts. Especially smokey almonds pan-fried with baby toms.

I think looking for a ‘dry centrepiece’ on ‘days off’ from a big piece of meat is possibly a difficult ask. Especially if you only customarily eat roast dinners (?). Otherwise, have the ‘no meat day’ on a day where you would have something other than a roast dinner/meat centrepiece? And cook one of millions of plant-based meal recipes, from sushi to stir-fry to oven-roasted wotnots, via tarte flambéé, or beanburger and fries with all the trappings.

Can’t go wrong with a portabello steak. Easy on the eyes and palate.

Speaking of Jackfruit – I made this Jackfruit Jalfrezi a few times and it’s effin gorgeous. The dhal is also lovely.

https://www.stylist.co.uk/food-drink/vegan-curry-recipes-spicebox/505266

We have this mushroom and chestnut wellington at Christmas – https://theordinarycook.co.uk/2011/10/06/mushroom-and-chestnut-wellington/  – which is lovely  (and very easy to make vegan if that’s your thing). You can also use the filling – minus the breadcrumbs – to make a lovely rich pie filling.

Re the jackfruit, I personally find it works very well in Mexican style cooking (doubtless also in curries) where you want texture more than flavour. It makes a great base for taco and fajitas.

I think the point is that, if you try and replace the meat in a roast dinner with a ‘focus’ item, even if veggie, it’s likely to not be any ‘better for you’ than the meat was. Just different. You don’t want a cheesy sauce, pastry or anything ‘wet’ but any veg baked/roasted plain ‘doesn’t look like’ a centrepiece – I don’t really see how you are going to square this circle.

I’m sure most of these have already come up.
– Wellingtons: mushroom, or beetroot with mushroom duxelles, or squash. e.g. wellington
– pies: cheese and onion (and potato) a favourite, mushroom and (fake) chicken for comfort food, or buy veg or fake mince and onion or whatever. e.g. Bikers pie
– pre bought stuff from the supermarket, tends to be better around Christmas with mushroom, brie, cranberry type bakes. I’m more than happy with some veggie sausages tbh.
– Nut roasts as already said. e.g. nut roast
– equivalent to shepherds pie or moussaka with lentils or fake mince e.g. moussaka

I find stuffed peppers, stuffed squash etc a faff tbh. Happily have sweet potato or squash as a side, just diced. But if you want a centrepiece that isn’t ‘just veg’ and isn’t pastry or fake-meat based, then stuffed peppers or squash/gourds with nutty rice, lentils, pine nuts might do.

Ultimate Vegan Christmas Roast Wellington

Maybe a pastry-crime, but it looks good on the inside 😎

beetroot with mushroom duxelles

Need to seek this out. Had beetroot wellington one xmas and it was really good. Beetroot really is a top food IME, in taste, texture and health. Just plain roasted in skins are delicious.

not one for the veggie purists but my go-to veggie roast is just a Quorn Roast – £2-3 quid from the supermarket freezers. As long as there’s gravy, or in the case of my xmas dinner, cranberry sauce then I really like it.

not one for the veggie purists but my go-to veggie roast is just a Quorn Roast

There is no accounting for taste. I’m not a veggie/vegan or ‘purist’ of any kind, but I really, really, love my food. That ‘roast’ thing there was once the cause of a shared family dinner ‘experience’. It was one moment where vegan, flexi and meaties* all had the same defeated, glazed expression after trying more than one mouthful. As the cook I know I’ll never be forgiven for choosing a Quorn Roast that day. I still cringe at the memory of overwhelming table-silence 😳

*Meaties of the kind who happier if ‘side-veg’ are notional/optional/boiled to death (while meat is cooked to ‘firm’ and covered in gravy). I did all this to please (excepting the meat of course), but the plastic ‘roll’ of Quorn could still not be saved, no matter how soft the veg or prolific the gravy.

ymmv. Try it, it’s a few quid, but be warned as well as encouraged!

Had some sliced Quorn sossies the other day (NYD) at a friend’s. Oven-roasted with a mango chutney glaze. Very,very nice, plump and tasty. Meaties and veggies all enjoyed. I actually thought that they were pork (yet without that ammonia/wee flavour you can sometimes get from pork)

Do not Google the thread title….

Here you go. (Christ, this was two years ago?!)

Vegetarianism for a meat lover.

ymmv. Try it, it’s a few quid, but be warned as well as encouraged!

Shame faced, but I quite like the Linda McCartney one but by and large I’ve been disappointed by Quorn, though the escalope things and (not sure if they were Quorn) kievs are pretty good, though I guess mainly by virtue of having garlicy stuff on them.

I don’t really see how you are going to square this circle

Thats really what I’m finding but assumed this was mainly a lack of inspiration rather than it being particularly difficult.
It’s not that I don’t *want* the cheesy sauce, the preformed artery clogging meat free tastyness or pies, is that I’m well enough versed in them not to feel like I’m missing a trick. (Not to say my recipe repertoire couldn’t be expanded, it always can.)
Where I feel like I am missing something is for those “mid week” dinners where I’m time poor so currently I’ll put a joint and things in the oven then get on with other stuff whilst it cooks, chuck a couple of chops in a pan, or heat up some of the aforementioned blue-peter or prepackaged things.
I’d rather hoped I might get something like “ohhh try slicing aubergine thickly, 10 minutes in the oven, then bread crumb them and quickly fry” or something and guessed the cheese/tomato sauce, curry, stew etc approach was mostly a result of lack of imagination on my part rather than “yeah just veg doesn’t work”.

(I do like the idea of the cauliflower parmo though!)

Here you go. (Christ, this was two years ago?!)

@cougar I’d had a rudimentary search for that or it’s ilk but just found a long list of replies about having fun in Glasgow.

though the escalope things and (not sure if they were Quorn) kievs are pretty good

thank me later

They are v nice on own merit. Make a great sandwich/burger or with a roast or sliced in strips and served with dipping sauce.

having fun in Glasgow.

Locked In escape room, near the station, is brilliant.

Aubergine and Halloumi burgers work fine, you can bread them too if you want.

https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/vegetarian/aubergine-and-halloumi-burgers/

You can part-cook the aubergine on a griddle before coating to speed things up

Sweet potato fries as a side works well with this

Speaking of Jackfruit – I made this Jackfruit Jalfrezi a few times and it’s effin gorgeous. The dhal is also lovely.

and

Re the jackfruit, I personally find it works very well in Mexican style cooking (doubtless also in curries) where you want texture more than flavour. It makes a great base for taco and fajitas.

and Tinned jackfruit…

…is **** rank

The thing about jackfruit is that it basically tastes of nothing and hasn’t got a great texture on it’s own, but if you disguise it well enough, people might eat it and say it’s nice. It’s the other ingredients that are doing the hard work, not the jack fruit. You could replace jackfruit with any number of things in those recipes without losing anything in texture or flavour.

Stuffed aubergines are pretty easy: halve and roast a couple of aubergines for about 30 min or so, let them cool (you could do this the day before). For the filling fry a chopped onion until soft, add chopped mushrooms and cook some more, then mix with pre-cooked lentils and the flesh of the aubergines (extract the flesh carefully to avoid getting holes in the aubergine skins). Add some herbs (sage is nice, thyme or oregano would be good too) + salt n pepper, maybe some pine nuts or chopped walnuts, then put all the mix back into the aubergine skins. You could grate a bit of cheese over the top at this point if you like. Pop into the oven for 20min or so.

For other stuffing ideas you could make a curried one using chickpeas+tomato, maybe something with lentils + halloumi, etc. etc.

Vegetarian moussaka and lasagnes are pretty easy to make, but obviously have a bit more cheese to them.

Locked In escape room, near the station, is brilliant

The thing which puts me off suggesting things like that to people is the word escape. There’s a panoply of people I’d strongly encourage to lock themselves in a room they from which they couldn’t. Conversely those I’d be happy to see back outside would likely be flummoxed by a door knob.

Stuffed aubergines are pretty easy…

Perfect ta, that’s the sort of thing!

@p7eaven We got a tin of it a while ago and OH* did a sort of pulled jackfruit BBQ sandwich thing. The sauce was ace, as were the chips and salad but the jackfruit was just a waste of space. I think it was the texture that did it for me though cos it has no taste whatsoever. No ta. I think it’s the search for a meat-like replacement that has led to jackfruit becoming A Thing. I’d rather have a really good chana gobi or dahl or a spicy bean burger!

* used to be a chef so he knows his onions (and other veg).

If it’s midweek quick dinners to replace the just cook a chop / sausages / burger then there are quite a few options of easy stuff or even ‘brown food’ from the freezer section to bung in the oven.

There were a couple of threads on here about veggie burgers recently, some are great, others less so and the same goes with veggie sausages. I also find that veggie food of this kind is better with different condiments to meat. Chutney tends to go better with veggie sausages than the mustard I would have with pork but your preferred mixture may be different but is worth experimenting with.

Also veggie sausages like the burgers are not equal and so you need to try different ones. Veggie fingers we got from Aldi were crunchy but almost too bland to eat after a couple so didn’t get bought twice.

Yes this is lazy cooking but midweek after work this and oven chips with some veggies is all there is the energy to cook but it does the job as well as meaty freezer food, just stock up on condiments.

Burger threads below plus a couple of recent taste tests from the Grauniad for burgers and sausages.

Hankering for a veggie burger

Meat free burger

Burger taste test

Vegan sausage taste test

McSween vegan haggis? Available from supermarkets.

In my experience, for folk south of the border, English supermarkets are only on the veggie haggis’s migratory path during January (for ex-patriot veggie Burn’s suppers) so nows the time to grab some. Dont worry if you wouldn’t like real haggis, theres barely any meat in haggis anyway and the veggie version is good for its own reasons and great with roast dinner flavours.

I had some at the weekend with clementine glazed carrots, potatoes roasted with red wine vinegar, Yorkshire puds and Hugh Fernley Whittingstalls vegan gravy.  That gravy, the puds and veggie haggis together are very satisfying combo

The gravy is one of the best gravies you can make full stop, the vegan-ness of it shouldn’t be any reason not to make it – I’m a carnivore and  have it with duck and its ace