vii #2: 7 ways to feed your fussy friends

Welcome back to vii, a weekly newsletter featuring an exploration into seven somethings. This week is full of inspiration for “free from” meals and feeding a large group.

Okay so “fussy” might be a slightly unfair adjective to use when so many of my friends have dietary requirements of some description and either find that cheese disagrees with them now or dough just doesn’t play nicely anymore.

I recently went away with 13 friends and genuinely half of the group had a restriction of some description. Amongst us we had vegetarians and vegans, gluten free and dairy free, as well as one lovely pair who got married earlier this year and are clearly made for each other but not much else! So that also ruled out citrus (including the often used preservative citric acid), peanuts, anything too spicy and, regretfully, chocolate.

An aside - you’ll start to notice there are no photos of food in this newsletter, rather other pictures from the week. The cooking process (along with the surprise birthday party, spa trip and topless washing up) got vlogged throughout the week and is in my “Feeding friends” highlight on Instagram if you missed it…

So how do you avoid making multiple different meals to satisfy everyone? There’s definitely an element of working smarter not harder in this scenario but multiple dishes can be less effort when approached the right way too.

IT’S JUST POT LUCK

This is the second time this group have holidayed together and, whilst we’re not pretending that we’ve got it down to an art just yet, one of the things that has worked fabulously both times is having a pot luck on the first night. Everyone brings a ready prepared dish so that after travelling there’s minimal effort required to get dinner ready. And whilst not everyone can eat everything, this tactic does guarantee that everyone can eat something!

LEGO DINNERS

On the theme of more dishes rather than less, giving people the building blocks to DIY their own dinner also works great for a large group with a variety of preferences. For the first night of “real” cooking, we gave everyone the ability to build their own rice or noodle bowl. As well as rice and 2 different types of noodles, there was a vegetarian dashi broth (made from vegetable stock cubes and seaweed), peanut satay sauce (as well as a cashew sauce with no soy sauce to keep it gluten free), chicken (marinated and plain), fried tofu, broccoli, boiled eggs and an array of condiments like crispy chilli oil, fried garlic and fried onions. It allowed everyone to have exactly what they wanted and even customise their seconds to be completely different from the first round. The peanut sauce was a big hit and is made entirely from store cupboard ingredients so I’ll be sure to share that recipe with you soon!

PASTA LA VISTA

Similarly the last night of the holiday featured a comparable set up to the rice and noodle bowls but with pasta being the carb of choice (and obligatory garlic bread of course). Pesto pasta is a much-loved quick dinner staple for a reason. It’s speedy, full of flavour and I genuinely haven’t met a person who doesn’t like it. (If you’re that one person that I haven’t met yet, I’m afraid you’re going to give me trust issues!) The jarred stuff, whilst convenient, isn’t always vegan and certainly isn’t preservative-free, which you’re learning now are key requirements for our group dinners. A vegan and lemon-less pesto satisfied half of our friends whilst a parmigiano-laden version appeased the others. Both were vibrant and herbaceous, packing a garlicky punch too. Steamed vegetables completed the line up for the evening along with some chicken for those that fancied it. The dairy-free or vegans amongst you will likely already be familiar with nutritional yeast but for those that haven’t come across it, it really was an MVP this week, providing a welcome alternate to grated cheese (including in the pesto) for those that couldn’t consume dairy. And a little pesto side note for the lazy amongst us (myself included at times), my favourite jarred pesto is the Belazu basil pesto that I usually get from Costco in an unnecessarily large jar but is also purchasable in a much more sensible size from most supermarkets.

HOW TO FAJITA EVERYONE ENOUGH

Scale is probably the biggest learning curve we had last year when feeding such a large group.  On night one in 2023, we had fajitas but there was only really enough for everyone to have one tortilla wrap, and we’d underestimated the quantity of vegetables and protein needed too. If a recipe has a “serves X” on it then it helps you to do the maths of how much to make but adding a bit extra is always a safe bet when there are big appetites to satisfy. Fajitas had their redemption arc this year and lessons were certainly learned from our previous experience. Not only had we bought a triple pack of wraps from Costco (as well as dips and 3 bags of tortilla chips), but we increased the options for everyone with a spiced rice, seasoned chicken, halloumi, tofu, mushrooms, sautéed peppers and onions, pico de gallo, grated cheese, sliced avocado and sour cream/coconut yoghurt. It was a recipe for success and there were no hungry bellies after, despite catering for a couple more people compared to last year.

PUMP UP THE VOLUME

I mentioned working smarter not harder too and so maximising the volume or prepping more food in order to have leftovers is also really helpful. It’s time to find the biggest pots possible and prep so much more veg than you think is necessary! On this occasion we made chilli because it’s such an easy meal to make vegan and cook in bulk. We did however end up with 3 pans on the go but that was more because I’d initially used tinned tomatoes that contain citric acid (who knew?!). So lesson learned for next time, not only are Mutti tinned tomatoes delicious but they contain genuinely nothing but tomatoes and salt. We also roasted quite a large beef brisket in the aga for 4-5 hours which was shredded up with a couple of forks once cooked. Half of it went into one of the pots of chilli for the non-vegans and the rest was tucked away for dinner another night, along with a substantial quantity of leftover chilli.

My top tips for bulking out a chilli, vegan or otherwise, are adding sliced leeks and/or finely chopped broccoli stalk (at the same time as your onion, carrot, celery) or tipping in some grated courgette or lentils before you leave to simmer and these will disappear seamlessly into the midst. Mushrooms are another great addition, either fresh ones that have been sliced or dried ones that have been soaked and chopped up. And my secret (but far from authentic) ingredient for an umami flavour bomb (which most importantly here is both vegan and gluten free) is miso. Don’t be shy!

POTATOES IN THE SAUNA

For busy days when there isn’t time to spend a few hours in the kitchen, leftovers are your best friend and so, for that matter, are jacket potatoes. We had a spa day planned one day with both of the two head chefs of the week more concerned with massages and being pampered than with mise en place. Dinner was kept as simple as humanly possible with numerous potatoes left to bake in the aga, whilst reheating leftovers from previous nights. Potato toppings included the vegan and beef chilli from earlier, as well as leftover satay sauce combined with the remaining beef brisket. There was also the option of grated cheese and baked beans, as well as a fridge raid vegan “tuna” “mayo” conjured up pre-spa, which contained nothing remotely close to tuna or mayo and wasn’t even that similar to the recipes I’d seen online. For the curious amongst you, it featured tinned chickpeas smashed quite lazily with a fork, a couple of dollops of hummus, a liberal zesting and squeezing of lemon, some blitzed nori seaweed with some spices and seasoning to taste. It was by no means a looker but it was a delicious addition to the dinner spread and genuinely a less than 5 minute job to rustle up.

TAKEAWAY THE MEAT

On the other end of the effort spectrum, we had an epic curry night on the penultimate evening, and the final night that we had all 14 of us together. It was a labour of love on my part but I had a lot of help with chopping all of the onions and other ingredient prep. There was a conscious effort to keep everything plant-based, some recipes naturally so and others tweaked to enable everyone to be able to eat everything. Daal is a vegan classic and an essential for a south-east Asian feast like this. I used the house black daal recipe from the Dishoom cookbook From Bombay With Love which requires some babysitting but if you’re making other dishes it’s easy to keep an eye on. Subbing the butter and cream for a plant-based alternative was the only amendment needed. The next dish I prepared was Romy Gill’s spicy chickpeas, a recipe available on The Independent’s website. The chickpeas are soaked in tea to add an extra dimension to the flavour and the remaining ingredients for the sauce can easily be prepared in advance. Next up was my friend Shagun’s keema recipe which is available on her blog Desi Diner. I’ve made this many times before and she recommends using soy mince rather than lamb in order to make this dish vegan. It’s a lovely fragrant recipe and offered a different texture as part of the evening’s spread. Finally, a dish I’ve cooked many times following an online cooking class with Diaspo during lockdown is mattar paneer using a recipe that only takes 30 minutes and so is a regular weeknight staple at home. A simple swap of firm tofu instead of paneer to get coated in the spiced tomato sauce was all that was needed to complete the array of vegan curries. I also roasted off some potatoes with garlic and cumin seeds and made a cucumber and mint raita with coconut yoghurt. This was all accompanied by basmati rice, naans, and other condiments like mango chutney. It truly was a feast for our friends.

This was quite possibly my favourite meal of the week, with it feeling especially rewarding that everyone (excluding our gluten intolerant friend and the naan) was able to eat everything that had been prepared. And I was confident that they were damn tasty dishes! So whilst my belly might have been at its happiest after this particular cooking extravaganza, it’s fair to say that every night with a load of your mates around the table is something special and worthy of celebration.

Menu for the week:

Pot luck

Rice/noodle bowls

Chilli

Fajitas

Jacket potatoes

Curry

Pasta