What's the rest of the menu?

Get some small delicata squash if you can. Make a bread stuffing and add some seasoned tofu. Bake stuffing in squash cups. Or if that's too fancy, just make sure there are a lot of sides with no meat and dairy, and add a cold bean salad of your liking. I make one with white beans, red onions, black kalamata olives, celery and red peppers, very colorful. Just use any old Italian style dressing you like, maybe some balsamic vinegar and evoo if you have it, that's special. Guild as much as you like. Make it Greek style with a greek dressing if you want something unusual. I will often serve it with chopped cherry tomatoes added before serving so they don't ick out. Something else you can do which is hard core, is do stuffed peppers. Green, red, yellow, very colorful for this time of year. Stuff with a rice/tomato stuffing and vegetarian meat crumbles or tofu instead of hamburger. I don't make this that often since we are not baked pepper fans, but it is impressive in appearance. Could use the same stuffing for small squashes.

I'd probably make a vegan chili. You could make it ahead of time and then warm a portion up for dinner. Some hummus and cut vegetables could serve as an appetizer. Use margarine (check that it includes no animal products) instead of butter in any of your vegetable side dishes and your niece can eat those, too.

First, assess you menu for items that are already vegan (salad maybe, rice, etc.), and what can be easily made vegan with some tweaks (veggie stock for meat-based, margarine or olive oil for butter).

I do a lot of soups and stews that are (incidentally) vegan.

I love this recipe (from Weight Watchers) for Senegalese Peanut Stew.

Chili-lime black bean soup can be made vegan if you substitute veggie broth for the chicken broth and omit the yogurt garnish (which goes on when your serve up, anyway).

I make a vegetarian chili for which I don't have a formal recipe (broadly, an onion, 5 or 6 garlic cloves, maybe some fresh peppers, a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes, three 14 oz cans of beans, drained and rinsed, usually a mix of black beans, navy beans, and chickpeas, chili powder and cumin to taste, which means lots, and I usually add a can of corn at the end).

All of the above can be served over rice for a pretty hearty meal.

I have two vegetarian daughters. One was vegan for a spell. (This one even threw in gluten free, that was a nightmare!)

We like the Gardein products. They are certified vegan. You can buy her an entree. So easy.

Ready made hummus is available every where Serve with cut up vegetables.

Have salad, loads of roasted veggies, rice, couscous as long as you don’t use butter.

At some point, you can go all out and create a whole vegan meal from scratch, but honestly now is not the time.

If you want you can ask her if she is okay with Gardein, Quorn, Boca, etc.

Dessert can be a fruit platter. Some bakeries have vegan options.

If these are not, there are other ready made things available. She can tell you her favorite. I am guessing that she doesn’t cook elaborate vegan meals every night.

The menu is:

Appetizer -- vege tray & dip, bruschetta and beef stick and crackers, and whatever else hubby drags out of the freezer. ;-)

brisket, sweet potatoes, some kind of green salad, roasted brussel sprouts.

Thank you all!! Great ideas!

If you can roast one sweet potato in the jacket, and assuming your Brussels sprouts are vegan, I think you’re set. My SIL is vegan and I wouldn’t need to do anything else for her.

I am making this vegan pasta for the vegan who's coming for Christmas. The rest of us are having ravioli with various sauces, garlic bread and salad. I'll also make a vegan pecan pie which is delicious and a chocolate cake.

https://minimalistbaker.com/creamy-vegan-garlic-pasta-with-roasted-tomatoes/

I bought the vegan parmesan, nutritional yeast and I'm going to use regular but good, shells. I still need to buy the unsweetened almond milk. I like making vegan dishes that everyone else likes to eat too so it's another option for them.

Thankfully my vegan is not remotely healthy and could probably live on garlic bread and pasta.

Get some hummus for the tray as a non-dairy dip. That will give you two vegan options for starters.

I second the Gardein recommendation. Their turkey cutlets with vegan gravy (and some mash) were reportedly nice from my vegetarian. You can find vegan cupcakes for dessert pretty easily, like at Whole Foods.

If you want to cook something, I make this black bean chili in my instant pot: LINK

Serve with sliced avocado for a creamy topping.

Are you close enough to you niece to ask her to bring her own dinner?

Yeah, throw some kind of vegan pattie in the micro and have hummus as an appetizer and you're pretty much set. Baked apples are vegan if you use margarine and would make a nice dessert for everyone if you can't find something vegan at the bakery.

I made this vegan pecan pie recipe at Thanksgiving and it was a big hit with everyone. It tasted different than a regular pecan pie but most people thought it was better. The crust is not quite as good as a butter crust but I used vegan butter AKA margarine EarthBound and a Crisco mix and I also used regular sugar in the recipe not coconut sugar and it was delicious.

https://www.makingthymeforhealth.com/the-best-vegan-pecan-pie/

Remember, no butter or dairy mixed in. A Vegetable option could turn quickly into a no go.

Some of this echoes what has already been said by others, but to summarize how to make your menu more vegan friendly without major changes...

The menu is:

Appetizer -- vege tray & dip--if your dip has dairy or mayonnaise, consider adding hummus as an option

bruschetta--vegan if you avoid butter (olive oil is traditional anyway) and cheese

and beef stick and crackers, and whatever else hubby drags out of the freezer. ;-)

brisket,

sweet potatoes,--recipes are all over the place but butter is common, and if marshmallows are involved (as they were in holiday recipes of my childhood) they are usually made with gelatin which is an animal product. Localeater's suggestion of roasting one in the jacket for her seems like a good one if your recipe can't easily be made vegan.

some kind of green salad--easy to make vegan. Let people dress their own if you were planning a creamy dressing, and make sure you have a vinaigrette or other vegan dressing option available.

, roasted brussel sprouts--again, easy enough to make vegan. No butter!

Niece is living in NYC. 1st time she's been "home" for Christmas in several years. Only reason she's able to come this year is because Broadway is closed.

(we're in Oklahoma)

Her Mom is bringing a hummus dip!!

Bumblebeez, did the coconut milk make the pie taste "coconutty?"

Sweet potato curry with coconut milk sounds so good all of a sudden...Sorry, my brain is doing recipe word association.

Some sugar is not vegan so if you're using it in anything (vinaigrette for example), be sure to check if yours is.

Not coconutty at all.

I also made vegan mashed sweet potatoes and vegan mashed potatoes and they were all delicious. Copious amounts of earth-bound vegan butter and sugar went far. I used coconut milk light in the sweet potatoes and did a streusel topping and the mashed potatoes just had butter olive oil and garlic salt

Have some mixed macerated fruit for dessert. Serve it over tofutti for her...over pound cake or ice cream or both for everyone else.

I do mine with grand marnier! Yum!

https://www.food.com/recipe/mixed-berries-marnier-237822

A lot of Ethiopian recipes are vegan. You might consider making some Berbere spice mix, which I like to use when making lentils. I find that this is a good use of cardamom pods. If you do not have those on hand, you could order it from Penzey's, but I always make my own because I always have the ingredients on hand.

My go to vegan recipe is called a warm salad, but it is really a side dish that is hearty enough for a main when serving vegans. I substitute and roast whatever veggies I have on hand and I use canned beans (unless I have an abundance of time, which I usually don't).

Wild rice salad recipe

Coconut milk reviews ttps://www.splendidtable.org/story/2019/01/10/americas-test-kitchen-taste-test-coconut-milk