Help-in Need of an AMAZING Vegetarian Dish!!

You have gotten some great responses so I will make this short. I come from a family with an Italian grandma so we had huge Italian feasts at the holidays. I now do a huge Italian dinner for New Years with friends every year. I have to do non-dairy and vegetarian and it is easy to do with pasta. If you are interested in any of my recipes, let me know.

D.

This is what we serve every Christmas, everyone loves it, even the meat eaters. You can even make it the day (or two) before and throw it in a crockpot the day of and serve it from there. It goes great with mashed potatoes. You can find the Seitan (it is just wheat gluten) at Whole Foods or you can make it yourself. I've even used the vegetarian "meat" strips that Boca makes, it's all the same thing so don't freak out about it. And I usually don't use the chestnuts.

Seitan Bourguignon
1 ½ cups pearl onions
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 tsp olive oil
½ lb portobello mushrooms, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tsp minced fresh thyme
2 tsp minced fresh rosemary
1 tsp minced fresh sage
1 tsp dried tarragon
2 bay leaves
2 cups dry red wine
2 cups dark vegetable stock
2 Tbsp tomato paste, or ¼ cup reconstituted sun-dried tomatoes
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 turnip, peeled, and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 parsnips, peeled, sliced lengthwise, and cut into ½-inch pieces
2 carrots, peeled, sliced lengthwise, and cut into ½-inch pieces
1 celery root, peeled, and cut into ½-inch dice
1 cup winter squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
6 to 8 chestnuts, halved
8 ounces prepared seitan, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 ½ tsp ground pepper
4 tsp tamari soy sauce
2 Tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot, dissolved in ¼ cup cold water
Sea salt to taste

To make the seitan bourguignon
In a large saucepan, sauté the onions and garlic in the oil over medium heat until they lightly brown, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the mushrooms and seasonings and sauté for 2 minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients except the cornstarch mixture and salt. Cover and simmer until the root vegetables are just tender, about 30 minutes. Stir in the cornstarch mixture and cook for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Adjust the salt.

White bean and escarole soup from the Italian Vegetarian cookbook. It is so good and vegan friendly. Also very few ingredients. We served it one Christmas Eve. You can also do a salad with caramelized pecans, avocados, dried cranberries and other goodies to round it out. I bet you could ook that recipe up on epicurious.com good luck!

That bourguignon sounds awesome! I'm going to try that during the holidays.

I'm not sure if you're a soup family, but curried squash soup has been something we've often had at the holidays. Not a main dish, really, but everyone loves it. You can google for a recipe, but basically you saute chunks of butternut squash and onion in oil/butter mix and curry (~ 3 tablespoons or more depending on strength and heat of curry) for a few minutes (until outside of squash pieces start to soften a little, but not cooked.) Add vegetarian stock and simmer until squash is done. Use an immersion blender or blender to puree most of the squash, holding back one cup for a bit of chunkiness.

I've found a lot of yummy and easy dishes on vegweb.com, and they are featuring Thanksgiving dishes this month. My son, who doesn't eat meat, was asking for dumplings like chicken and dumplings and I made this veg stew & dumplings recipe, which was awesome! Everyone in the family loved it (I added parsnips, used veggie stock instead of concentrate, and used soy sauce instead of tamari): http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=10161.0

Hi C.!

I have to go with the veggie lasagna. We also have vegetarian guests at most of our gatherings. Meat eaters love it too. I've always used the recipe on the Creamette box. It uses onions and green peppers, but the one time I used zuchinni and mushrooms (because I knew some didn't like peppers)I had many requests for the recipe. The vegetarians I know don't eat unusual foods so I think that if it's something you would enjoy, so would your vegetarian guests.

Try out Mollie Katzen's recipes on this site:

http://www.molliekatzen.com/

She's author of my favorite veg cookbook The Moosewood Cookbook -- you can get at library if you can't find anything main-dishy at the site. She's really so great, also featured in this month's Women's Day for Main Dish Veggie Dishes. :)

I absolutely LOVE the recipes from the "Horn of the Moon" cookbook by Ginny Callan (a veggie resturant in VT near where I used to live). What I like about it is that it isn't afraid of butter or any of that good fatty stuff :)

I also LOVE the recipes from "Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone" by Deborah Madison.

Honestly, I was all vegetarian for about 10 yrs and am mostly vegetarian now and I have made nearly everything in both of these books. I haven't found a bad recipe YET. I especially love the Butternut Squash White Bean Ginger soup in Horn of the Moon. Email me if you want the recipe.

All of these cookbooks can generally be checked out of the library (that's how I originally found the Deborah Madison book)

Whole Wheat(or regular noodle) Butternut Squash Lasagna!! sooo good!

http://health.discovery.com/fansites/sara-snow/recipes/la...

www.recipeezaar.com is my favourite recipe/cooking website. You can narrow your search by requesting vegetarian recipes. I think a spinach or vegetable lasagna is a great idea, too. How kind of you to think of your guests this way!
R.

I have a really yummy recipe for vegetable lasagna-- if you're interested I'll type it out for you!

thanks!
M.

Ovo-lactos or vegan? I LOVE stuffed shells and it's meatless and so filling:)

Go to this site: http://recipres.com/ Go into the search bar, and type in " veggie dishes ", and there you go! It is a wonderful place for veggie recipes of all kinds. The Best of Luck