Alexis Hillyard knows that catering to the meatless, grain-free eaters that may pull up to your dinner table this holiday season could be a challenge.
Vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, gluten-free: Diet restrictions can be daunting to even the most steely-nerved home chef.
As a gluten-intolerant vegan, Hillyard been forced to defend her dietary needs at many a dinner table.
“Unfortunately yes, but the times are changing,” said Hillyard, Edmonton AM’s regular Christmas cooking columnist, and the host of Stump Kitchen cooking series, an online series which celebrates body diversity.
“And if you make it fun and accessible and you don’t get too serious about it, then people are much more receptive to trying new foods, and that’s kind of how I roll.
“I love showing people what vegan and gluten-free food can be, because it can be pretty amazing.”
Even if Hillyard serves up healthy gluten-free and vegan foods, she wasn’t always a culinary whiz — or gluten intolerant.
When her body started rejecting grain-laden foods a few years ago, she changed her diet and started experimenting in the kitchen. She worried her new meal plan might put a damper on the holidays.
“Luckily, my younger sister Ainsley went before me. She’s been vegan for a long, long time,” Hillyard said.
“But it was definitely hard for my family to adjust because you have the traditional turkey and the meals and the butter, but my sister was gracious and taught them well, and now I’m teaching them well and they are right on board.”
Just ‘veganize’ it
When the holidays rolled around, Hillyard made it her personal mission to “veganize” all her family favourites, including a hashbrown casserole drenched in cheese.
It was surprisingly easy to find substitutes for troublesome ingredients, and she recommends other people give it a shot with their family favourites.
“This casserole, it’s so good, and we thought, ‘Oh no what are we going to do?’ Because it was such a favourite but we just veganized it.
“We went to the store and bought vegan butter, vegan cream cheese and hashbrowns and it was really incredible.”
There are plenty of ways to accommodate special dietary needs around the holidays, Hillyard said. If you’re hosting a big crowd, make sure things are well labelled.
‘Take the stress off the cook’
Hillyard’s final piece of advice: If do have dietary needs, the best way to avoid becoming a dinner table outcast, is to notify the cook well in advance, to ensure you don’t go hungry.
That way if the cook is using meaty or buttery ingredients in veggie-based meals, they can remove a few servings and set them aside.
“Say you’re in the kitchen, and you’re helping out, you can steal some brussel sprouts or mashed potato or sweet potato before the butter gets mixed in, and then you have your own little ‘veganized’ meal.
“That can really take the stress off the cook in the kitchen.”
One of her favourite holiday meals is an original recipe for sweet and savoury Stuffed Spaghetti Squash, which is vegan, gluten-free, nut-free and soy free.
Stuffed Spaghetti Squash
Ingredients:
- Grapeseed oil
- One small spaghetti squash
- Loaf of gluten-free raisin bread
- 2 stalks of celery
- 1 medium onion
- 2-3 cloves of garlic
- 1 Gala Apple
- Dried cranberries
- 3 tablespoons unsalted sunflower seeds (roasted or raw)
- 3 tablespoons unsalted pumpkin seeds (roasted or raw)
- Teaspoon each of: Sage, Marjoram, Thyme, Rosemary, & Black Pepper (note: this is basically just a homemade poultry seasoning so use that is you have it!)
- ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (if you don’t have this, just add a dash each of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, & cloves)
- ½ teaspoon garlic salt
- Dash of salt
- ¼ cup melted vegan butter
How to make this delicious dish:
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees
- Cut spaghetti squash in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds with a spoon.
- Place face up (like little bowls) on a baking pan and drizzle with Grapeseed oil (about 1-2 tablespoons each). Sprinkle a tiny bit of cinnamon and salt on each half. Set aside.
- Chop the onion and celery, and dice the garlic. Then sauté these three ingredients in a pan with some grapeseed oil over medium heat until onions are translucent (about 5 minutes).
- While the veggies are sautéing, cut or rip 6-8 pieces of your gluten-free raisin bread into small pieces (no bigger than a quarter) and place into large mixing bowl.
- Chop up the apple into small pieces and add to the bread bowl.
- Add about ¼ cup of the dried cranberries to the apple and bread bowl.
- Add in the sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds to the bread and apple bowl.
- Right before you take the veggies off the pan, add all of the spices listed above so that the heat can help open us their flavour
- Melt the vegan butter and pour over ingredients in the bread and apple bowl.
- Add the sautéed veggies and spices to the bread and apple bowl. Mix everything together with a wooden spoon (or our your limbs). When it starts to feel a little squishy but still a bit spongy, it’s ready to stuff!
- Add stuffing to the hollowed out squash halves. Make sure the stuffing is level with the top of the squash, do not over fill.
- Add a bit of grapeseed oil to the baking sheet and flip the squash over so they are stuffing-side down on the pan. The edges of the squash should be flush with the pan.
- Bake for about 1 hour or until the squash are fork tender when you poke them through their skin. The bottom may have caramelized a bit but that’s a good thing
- Serve stuffing side up with your favourite vegan gravy.
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