Just a fun lil reminder that if you’re thinking of trying out a low meat / #vegetarian / #vegan / pescatarian diet, festive meals are the perfect opportunity to do so - maximum impact, it’s more fun cooking during the festive period, and CRANBERRY SAUCE EXISTS

Some random suggestions:

- Focus on making a dank stuffing if you’re making a roast dinner - cranberry nut stuffing, apple, garlic and sage the possibilities are ENDLESS

- Nut roasts aren’t always soggy, FIND A CRUNCHY RECIPE

- @avantgardevegan & @BOSHTV have some dope recipes in their books. USE THEM.

- DO YOUR RESEARCH. Literally just google ‘vegan/vegetarian Christmas meal meat replacement ideas’ or whatever you’re looking for. Be specific (I.e. include ‘not nut roast’ ‘no parsnips’ ‘easy’)

- Marmite. Roast. Potatoes. They changed my life.

- There’s literally a vegan replacement for everything, use vegetable stock/vegetable gravy (also, Bisto original is vegan!) and check you’re not using cranberry/mint jelly with gelatine, check premixed stuffing for milk/egg/meat

- Linda McCartney have these amazing frozen vegan turkey and cranberry plaits, I HIGHLY recommend

-Vegan butter / dairy-free margarine is your friend for roasting potatoes

- Brush any pastry with non-dairy milk

- Parboil THEN roast your parsnips AND your carrots. Pre-roasting, instead of brushing them with honey, use agave or maple syrup (it’s not weird, shut up), or just oil and salt / pepper ‘em up

- Try this butternut squash by @jamieoliver - trust me. https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/butternut-squash-recipes/baked-squash/

Theres now vegan custard, vegan single / double cream, vegan whipped cream, vegan Christmas pudding and mince pies (if you’re making mince pies from scratch, a lot of the pre-made jars are already vegan - just check for beef suet & dairy - and jus-roll is vegan ). EASY.

For U.K. festive party easy food needs, go to Tesco and get some of the own-brand mini vegetarian sausage rolls from the freezer - AMAZING. Also they do huge packs of vegetarian chicken nuggets - these are all accidentally vegan, too. Oh AND FROZEN VEGAN CHURROS, YUM.

For alcohol (I gotchu dw) It’s SUPER easy to make a vegan eggnog with a cashew or oat milk (to thicken it up I’ve seen some recipes use vegan double cream), and mulled wine / cider (check that the cider/wine is vegan, tbh there are plenty of options in the U.K. - just google it)

Not a fan of Brussels? Roast them with chestnuts (and maybe even some vegan bacon) OR slice ‘em up and fry them with roasted chopped chestnuts and vegan bacon in some vegan butter.

- Gingerbread and cookies are EASY to make vegan

- Make some Pinterest boards and collect blogs and recipes - it’s FUN.

Basically, if you’re at all considering this and you’re in a place where you can give it a go and ditch the turkey or whatever, bloody go for it because I’ve not looked back! It’s improved my cooking confidence and knowledge, and made me more excited for festivities!

Also if you can’t try this / can’t be vegan or aren’t ready yet or whatever I don’t think any less of you obviously, but for me personally, seeing suggestions and having support helped me massively, so it’d be stupid if I didn’t try to put some of that out into the world!