Vegetarian Christmas Dinner

Wow, the number of people arriving at this site by googling for "vegetarian Christmas dinner" is amazing. Most of them end up on the page where I put the recipe for stuffed roast butternut squash, which would make a great Christmas dinner. But that's not what we're having this year.

Vegetarian Cheesey Roast

Rip up half a loaf of wholemeal bread into a food processor and whizz it to breadcrumbs. Place this in a bowl with half a pound of really tasty cheddar cheese, such as from the Snowdonia Cheese Company, grated (I use the grater attachment on the food processor), cut an onion into quarters and whizz that into pieces in the food processor and put in the bowl with the other ingredients. Add half a cup of thick cream, a handful of chopped mixed fresh herbs, a very generous pinch of mustard powder, a normal-sized pinch of cayenne pepper, and plenty of salt and freshly milled black pepper. Mix it all together and it will come into a doughy lump.

This in fact is more-or-less Delia Smith's recipe for Glamorgan sausages, which she uses as the basis of vegetarian sausage rolls and very nice they are too. they're also nice fried up as vegetarian sausages, and the same mixture can be used in all kinds of other ways to make tasty vegetarian meals. We'll be using it to stuff a suet roll.

For the suet pastry, mix 8oz wholemeal self raising flour, a small handful of chopped fresh herbs, a pinch of salt and 4oz vegetarian suet in a mixing bowl and add a little cold water until it comes together into a pliable dough. Turn it onto a floured board and knead lightly, then rest it for a few minutes before rolling out out into an oblong.

Now put the cheesey mixture over the top of the pastry rectangle in an even-ish layer, then roll it up from the narrow end. Moisten the join with water to make it stick and place the roll on a tray with the join underneath and bake at 200C, 400F, Gas 6 for about 30-35 minutes.

Serve it with roast potatoes (roast them in vegetable oil, not dripping or lard, for vegetarians), mashed parsnips, sprouts, Yorkshire puddings (again make sure your roasting oil is veggie-friendly), bread sauce (don't leave this out - if you follow my recipe it's the best bit of the whole meal, I promise), and vegetarian stuffing. The vegetarian in your family will thank you.