The Almost Vegan Birthday Feast (18/11/17)

On a weekend near my birthday, it's been my tradition - I think for about 9 or 10 years now - to have a group of girlfriends around for a feast. Many of my friends are vegetarian, plus one of my friends who has been coming in the past few years is also allergic to gluten and dairy, which means that vegan food is a good starting place - and then of course, there's the gluten free addition. She's also allergic to most nuts, so that doesn't help either. These dishes are mostly vegan except for some honey in one salad dressing and the tortilla, which has egg in it. Also, dessert featured egg in a large way. But otherwise, pretty varied despite the restrictions (and yummy...) Sarah was home for the weekend, so helped me with the cooking.

This first dish (above) is titled "Surprisingly Delicious Moroccan Cauliflower Salad" - which made me laugh  - it uses cauliflower "rice", which was useful because the cauliflower steaks, which we've had before several times, generate lots of leftover bits of cauli. The tahini yogurt sauce was made with soya yogurt, so it was dairy free. Tahini has such a strong taste you couldn't tell it was soya yogurt at all... Recipe: BBC Good Food Magazine

This is a lentil and butternut squash salad; I've made it lots of times before. (BBC Good Food)

This is a new one, though - it's a parsnip and brussel sprout bubble and squeak cake. It was gorgeous - and very Christmassy seeming - I'm considering cooking it again for Christmas dinner. (BBC Good Food)

This is a simple tortilla recipe, cooked in the oven and cut into pieces - I've made it before for parties.(BBC Good Food)

Here we have a Caribbean Vegetable Curry (with coconut cream on top) which I'd been planning to make for dinner a couple of weeks ago and never quite got around to - we'll definitely have it again, though as it was really nice. Spicy. (Sainsbury's Magazine)

This was perhaps the star of the evening, despite looking so ordinary -it was a "Burnt Aubergine Vegetable Chili" - and had a really brilliant smoky flavour, due to the aubergine.  I made some rice to go with both of those dishes. (BBC Good Food Magazine)

This was a Spanish Vegetable casserole and was nice, though not nearly as interesting as some of the other things. (Tesco Vegetarian Magazine)

This one you may recognise from other postings - it's Niomi Smart's Cauliflower Steaks with Chimichurri Sauce, which we think is an excellent dish. (Eat Smart by Niomi Smart).

It occurs to me now that I should have cooked Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe "Tamara's Ratatouille", but then again, you can't have everything. Maybe next year.

Dessert was meringues, with lots of fresh fruit and some cream (or soya cream). I put cocoa in some of the meringues, so they had a kind of marble effect. I say "I" - it was actually Sarah who made the meringues - ironic really, as she doesn't even like them...