Vegan Guests

Fall has arrived!  And with fall comes Thanksgiving and then the winter holiday season full of meals with family and friends.  But not all family members and friends eat the same things as you.  As a vegan, the worst dinner guest experience involves watching from behind a plate towering with salad as other guests enjoy a hot, filling meal which could have easily been made vegan.  As host, it is difficult to accomodate and please everyone without going to ridiculous lengths.  Here are some tips on how to replace non-vegan ingredients in your favourite recipes so that feeding those vegans, vegetarians and lactose-intolerant will be no trouble at all.

Eggs

All eggs do is act as a binder and there are a lot of suitable substitutes.

In baking try replacing one egg with one mashed up banana or one cup of apple sauce.  Not only will your baking be vegan, it will likely be more delicious.

For other dishes, simply mix 1 tbsp of ground flax seed with 3 tbsp of water for each egg you're replacing.  You can also buy egg replacer in the store.  Most health food stores should sell it.

Milk

This one's simple!  Just use a non-animal milk.  Coconut milk adds great flavour, especially in baking and soups.  Regular soy milk and almond milk's flavours blend in to dishes a lot more like dairy milk.  Rice milk and hemp milk are very healthy, but they have a bit of a strange taste to those not used to non-dairy milks so use them with caution

Butter

You can find butter substitutes, such as Earth Balance, but margarine works just fine.  You just need to be careful because most margarines are not vegan. Becel has a vegan margarine, which says "vegan" right on the label. Fleischmann's brand is also vegan.

When I run out of margarine I just replace it with an equal amount of oil.  I've never had a problem doing this, so you won't either.




Now you know that vegetables, mashed potatoes, and breads are easy to make vegan.   If you're unclear on how to best accomodate someone, just ask. You can also always request that your guest bring along an entrée or dessert, just to take some of the pressure off yourself.  Being accomodating can be annoying, but when you invite someone for a meal it's only polite to make sure there is food they can eat.