November lunch for 7 - including a vegetarian!

I was planning a lunch for a group of wine-tasters recently, when I realised that one of them is a vegetarian (I always check with people these days). This put a different perspective on lunch, as up to that point, I was planning a warming lamb casserole with Indian spices and flavours, which I had planned to prepare the day before. I know that a lot of vegetarians hate the idea that they are left with the 'side dishes' while everyone else scoffs down the dish that is the centre-piece of lunch, so I had to rethink my approach. It was made even more complicated by the fact that said vegetarian has also been diagnosed with wheat intolerance. So, I decided that a series of 'help yourself' dishes would work well - that way each dish would be interesting in itself, and the vegetarian luncher could simply not eat the meat dish. It worked out extremely well! I included the following:


Roasted squash (yes, more of the wonderful Crown Prince!), with lots of rocket, roasted pine nuts, little chunks of goats cheese, pink peppercorns and dressed with a mix of olive oil, lemon juice and cider vinegar. Because this dish is quite robust and filling, I reckoned that the vegetarian would get enough to eat! I hadnt reckoned on it going down as well as it did for the carnivores around the table, so it was just as well that I had hedged my bets with some 'meaty' aubergine as well! Everyone commented on how delicious the squash was - most people saying that they are sick of butternut squash at this stage, so something different and more interesting in taste was great. I forgot to take a photo of it, but I will the next time I make it and post the photo to my blog.


Tomato salad - I used the last of my home-grown toms, and the rest of them were bought at the market, so they tasted delicious! I added some red onion, some long red pepper slices and some basil, then drizzled some olive oil on top.


I made some tztaziki, and bought some really good hummus from Lilliput Stores in Stoneybatter, and I made some flatbreads with spelt flour. I also roasted some aubergine that morning.


Last, but not least, I roasted some lamb in the oven - fillet of lamb off the leg, which had marinated in garlic, mint, olive oil and thyme for a while beforehand. Unfortunately, while concentrating on making the flatbreads, I left the lamb in the oven for about ten minutes too long, so it was more done that I would have liked, but otherwise it was delicious!


We had a lovely meal out of all this - everyone just helped themselves to the various dishes and I dont think that anyone else realised that one of the guests was a vegetarian at all! And just about everything we ate was healthy - lots of organic vegetables, healthy fats, dips made from healthy ingredients (hummus with chickpeas and tztazaki from yoghurt, cucumber, garlic and mint), organic lamb, organic spelt flour, etc...


To drink with the food, we had a French Syrah Les Grands Augustins from Tardieu Laurent in the Vin de Pays d'Oc, which complemented the food beautifully!

Let me know if you would like any of these recipes, I would be delighted to send further details to you... The whole meal took about an hour and a half to prepare, so a great option for a relaxed Sunday lunch maybe followed with some more cheese and fruit to round it off...