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love eat. I love vegetables in all kinds of ways and today I present them to you as an idea for a vegan Christmas lunch . There are more than 15 types of vegetables, some nuts, fruit trees, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
A rhapsody of flavors, textures and colors.
Vegan Christmas lunch – menu proposal
The ingredients are enough for about four people, even if you fill your plates more generously than I did.
Cold appetizer
For a cold appetizer, I suggest kale and walnut pesto on toasted bread with beluga lentils and pomegranate .
Ingredients:
- 80 g of kale leaves (cleaned of hard parts)
- 1 handful of cleaned walnut kernels
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
- 2 pinches of salt .
Ingredients for serving:
- 8 small slices of bread
- 20 g of beluga black lentils
- 1/4 pomegranate .
Preparation
- Clean the kale leaves from the thicker parts, the so-called. stems and cut into strips. Mix well with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and fry briefly in a pan together with walnuts. About 3 – 5 minutes.
- Put everything in a blender and chop briefly to get pesto . It is not necessary to turn it into a smooth paste, it will be tastier if it has a crunchier texture.
- Cook the beluga lentils according to the instructions, clean the pomegranate, and before toasting, you can coat the slices of bread with olive oil if you wish.
- Serve the pesto on toasted bread, which you can spread with vegan butter if you wish, and add boiled beluga lentils and cleaned pomegranate to everything.
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Soup
What’s Christmas lunch without soup? I suggest leek and potato soup .
Ingredients:
- 2 leeks
- 3 medium-sized potatoes
- 750 ml of vegetable stock (you can use vegetable stock dissolved in warm water)
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- salt
- pepper
- for serving, fresh fennel leaves and edible flowers (in my case, it is a sweet plant).
Preparation
- Heat the olive oil in a pot, add the leek cut into rings and sauté until soft.
- Then add the peeled and diced potatoes, pour in the vegetable stock and season with salt and pepper and cook for 25-30 minutes on medium heat.
- Remove from heat and puree with a stick blender until the soup becomes creamy.
- When serving, you can decorate with fresh fennel and petals of edible flowers.
Warm appetizer
Fagottini filled with pumpkin cream, tofu and hummus in a delicate sauce of broccoli, vegan butter and sage are my suggestion for a warm Christmas appetizer.
Ingredients for the dough:
- 150 g of smooth wheat flour
- 120 ml of hot water
- a pinch of salt .
Filling ingredients:
- 120 g of pumpkin puree
- 50 g of hard tofu
- 1 soup spoon of hummus
- salt
- pepper
- other spices of your choice.
Ingredients for the sauce:
- 1 small head of broccoli
- 3 tablespoons of vegan butter
- salt
- pepper
- sage leaves .
Ingredients for serving:
- if desired, a little vegan feta cheese .
Preparation
- Knead the dough by pouring hot water into the flour, adding salt and mixing. You can first use a cooker or a fork because it’s hot, and then use your hands.
- When you transfer it to the surface, knead it for about 10 minutes until it becomes silky smooth. Leave to rest for 30 minutes, covered. You knead the dough with hot water to get the dough like for potsticker dumplings , because you won’t cook the fagottine, fry some in a pan in oil and finish with a little water/steam.
- Make the filling by blending cooked or baked pumpkin with tofu and hummus, and add additional seasoning if necessary. It depends on how intense your hummus is, so first blend it without spices and only then add it when you have tried it.
- Roll out the dough very thin , flour it freely if it sticks, and then cut equal squares. Mine were about 8 x 8 cm.
- Place a teaspoon of the filling in the middle of each square and connect the ravioli to form a small packet or letter. But if it seems complicated, feel free to cut them into any other shape for ravioli or dumplings.
- Heat the vegetable oil in the pan, not too much, just enough to coat the bottom of the pan, then lay the fagottines/ravioli on it and bake until the part where they lie in the pan gets a golden crispy crust .
- Then pour some water. How little will depend on the pan and how much fagottina you put in it. Let’s say about 100 ml of water goes into one filled large pan. Quickly cover with a lid and let the fagottini steam . When the water evaporates, they are done.
- Steam the broccoli, and gently melt the butter in a pan.
- Mix with cooked broccoli and chop everything with a stick mixer or in a blender. Return to medium heat, add sage leaves and season. Simmer briefly for 1-2 minutes and serve with fagottines, and if you wish, you can crumble a little vegan feta cheese over everything.
Main course
A vegan Christmas lunch deserves a special main course, and my suggestion is medallions made of mushrooms, eggplant and wheat gluten in a sauce of hazelnuts, olive oil and pepper , and as a side dish, mixed roasted vegetables.
Ingredients for medallions:
- 150 g of eggplant
- 180 g of oyster mushrooms
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 130 g of wheat gluten
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 4 soup spoons of olive oil
- 1 tablespoon of chicken seasoning
- 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
- pepper
- salt .
Ingredients for the marinade:
- 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
- 1 and a half tablespoons of mustard
- 1 teaspoon of chicken seasoning
- half a teaspoon of salt
- 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar .
Preparation
- Clean the mushrooms and roughly cut them into equal parts, and de-bitter the eggplant beforehand and then cut it into smaller cubes. Also cut the onion and carrot into smaller pieces. It is not so important that you are meticulous, because everything eventually goes into the blender.
- Heat the oil and transfer the vegetables to brown nicely. Season with pepper, garlic and chicken seasoning, and add salt at the very end so that the mushrooms don’t release too much water. With constant stirring, simmer for about 15 minutes, then transfer to a blender and grind completely .
- Transfer to a bowl and add wheat gluten and baking powder . Knead the dough , without kneading too much. Just to soak everything in, you should be done in a minute, two at the most.
- Make medallions , try to make them all roughly equal, you can help yourself with a scale. Mine, for example, weighed 30 g each.
- Dip each one in the marinade (mix all the ingredients) and wrap in aluminum foil. Steam for about 30 minutes or in hot water for about 20 minutes. The most ideal thing would be to do part of this step the day before, you can even do it a couple of days before, but it won’t be terrible even if it’s all done on the same day. I like the texture better when they stand for a day because all the ingredients stabilize.
- Basically, when they are cooked, take them out of the foil and grill them quickly on a grill or a regular pan so that they are browned on all sides and create a crispy outer crust.
During this time, prepare the hazelnut sauce.
Ingredients for the hazelnut sauce:
- 1 handful of hazelnuts
- 100 ml of vegetable cream for cooking
- 4 soup spoons of olive oil
- 1 tablespoon of colorful peppercorns
- salt .
Preparation
- Briefly toast the hazelnuts in a pan , then rub them well in a cloth to remove as much of the skin as possible, and if you use already cleaned ones, also toast them in a pan beforehand to release their oils before blending.
- Transfer to a blender , add olive oil and cream and blend until you get a smooth cream.
- Return to the pan, add peppercorns and season with salt.
Here is also a recipe for roasted vegetables, which was found here as a side dish.
Ingredients for roasted vegetables:
- 2 black radishes
- About 10 Brussels sprouts
- 4 smaller carrots (I combined orange, purple and yellow carrots)
- 4 sweet potatoes (I used white)
- 4-6 small tomatoes
- About 10 small onions (or 2 shallots or 1 sliced onion)
- olive oil
- salt
- pepper
- rosemary
- marjoram .
Preparation
- Wash the vegetables well. Cut the radish into quarters if it is smaller or into slices if it is larger, cut a small x on the root of the brussels sprouts, cut the carrots in half (lengthwise), and the sweet potato into approximately the same parts as the radish , then bathe together with the onions and tomatoes in a mixture of olive oil, salt , pepper, rosemary and marjoram. Mix everything nicely with your hands so that it is covered with oil and spices on all sides.
- Bake at 200 °C, in a heated oven, for about 20 minutes. If you want to avoid it sticking, feel free to use baking paper.
Serve all components of the main dish by sprinkling the vegetables with fresh parsley, and pouring the hazelnut sauce over the medallions.
