I'm spending this Christmas with my family, and looking to come up with ways to make their traditional Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas morning breakfast vegetarian, at least for myself.  This will be my first Christmas with them when I absolutely will not eat any meat--although I've been a vegetarian for all practical purposes for several years, I did eat small amounts of meat occasionally until last year, and I did not spend last Christmas with my family.

Christmas dinner is not  an issue, because they don't have anything in particular they absolutely always have for dinner on Christmas Day--except pecan pie for dessert, and that's fine with me!  I can easily negotiate to make the meal vegetarian or meat optional.  And they respect my being a vegetarian; no one will try to press me to eat meat.  What I'm looking for is a way to adjust the menu that will still feel like Christmas to me.

My family's traditional Christmas Eve dinner has always been ham, with a few festive sides.  Breakfast on Christmas Day is always leftover ham, muffins, and fruit.  I'm especially looking for something to replace the ham for breakfast--something with good protein that would balance the muffins well.  For dinner, if there are plenty of other dishes (and I can make sure that there are), I shouldn't need an outright replacement for the ham, though if I can come up with one, so much the better!

Breakfast, though:  what would be a good substitute?  Vegetarian sausage comes to mind, and I'll go with that if I can't come up with anything else.  But I'd like to have other options.

I'm thinking something flavorful in a savory/spicy sort of way.  No sugar; I can't eat that in the morning. If eggs are an ingredient, it can't have an eggy texture; I have an extreme taste aversion to that. Tofu scramble doesn't seem like it would go that well.  And I'd prefer something vegan--there will be enough eggs and dairy in the other foods I'll be eating.  And it should be something I can make either ahead of time or in the twenty to thirty minutes it will take to bake the muffins.

Any ideas?

My feeling is to go ahead & make the meat for the meat lover.  This doesn't mean that you have to eat any of it yourself.  And make some vegetarian dishes for yourself & anyone who wishes to partake...  This will keep all happy with having their likes, or traditional foods...  To me it is not the meal that counts, it is Christ...  He is the reason for the season...    Have a very enjoyable meal with whatever you decide to make...  Merry Christmas...

I am sorry that I can not think of a christmas ham replacement.  I do love morningstar breakfast links.  I in fact prefer then to actual sausage links.  Ham is a hard one.  I love a tofu steak recipe I have, but it seems like it wouldn't fit your needs even though it is a vegan dish that even my meat loving husband enjoys.  It is just a tasty dish, it has no resemblence to ham.  I am drawing a complete blank on vegan substitutes for ham.  If it were beef, I would suggest fire grilled portebella mushrooms brushed with olive oil and fresh garlic.

I always make a lasagna, have vegetarian meatballs and vegetarian sausages for Christmas dinner.
I also make cottage cheese mixed with horseradish.
I don't have a ham replacement though, do you have a Whole Foods near you?
They might have something.
I know they have a Quorn roast, but it has egg in it. It wont taste like ham, but it will kind of look like one.

Maya

ok we are all just trying to help here, no need to sound so upset if we didn't understand properly.

maya