1. Preheat oven to 400F (200C).
2. Rinse the lentils, then add the rinsed lentils to a pot with the vegetable broth, cover, and bring to a simmer and cook for about 35 to 40 minutes until liquid is absorbed and lentils are soft, even mushy.
3. Take an immersion blender or potato masher and mash the lentils until about two thirds of the lentils are mush.
4. In the meantime, chop the nuts and put them in a dry pan over medium heat. Toast them, keeping an eye on them for about 10 minutes until they are all toasty and fragrant. Remove from the pan and set aside.
5. In a small bowl mix together the flax and warm water and set aside to thicken.
6. Chop up the onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms, and garlic.
7. Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium high heat, then sauté the onions, carrots and celery until they begin to soften up, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and sauté another 5 minutes until the mushrooms have shrunken and become juicy. Add in the garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, and cayenne and sauté about 2 minutes more. Remove from heat.
8. In a large bowl, mix everything together- the lentils, toasted nuts, veggies, flax mixture, the oats and the flour. *Up to this point, you can do everything a head of time. I made the lentil mixture 4 days before using and did not have any problems with it. Just cover it really well and pop it into your fridge until you are ready to use it. If you were doing this for Thanksgiving, I would make the mixture  and put the puff pastry in the fridge the night before. The next morning, you just have to do the below steps and it will come together nice and quickly*
9. On a lightly floured surface roll out one of the puff pastry sheets until you get a rectangle that is about 10 inches by 14 inches. Transfer the pastry sheet to parchment paper. At this point you have two options:
   1. Just roll up your lentil loaf in the puff pastry.  Take half of the lentil mixture and form a loaf shape down the middle of the puff pastry, leaving a bit of room at both ends. Use your hands to pat the mixture into a firm log. Wrap up the loaf any way you see fit.
   2. Go for the WOW factory with the weave texture shown in the picture. Use the back of a knife to make a guide dividing the pastry into three even sections. Then cut angled strips down each side about 1 inch wide. Cut off the top two and bottom two strips so that you have two end flaps. Place half of the lentil mixture down the centre of the dough and using your hands, pat into a firm loaf shape. Now fold up the top flap over the end, then take the top right strip and fold over the loaf. Take the top left strip, and fold that over, making an x. Do this all the way down the crossing alternative strips. Try to keep the strips close together leaving only small gaps. Once you get near the bottom, fold the bottom flap up, then finish braiding the last strips tucking the ends into anywhere they look good. (see the above picture for a visual).
10. Repeat with the remaining pastry and lentil mixture so you have two loaves.
11. Optional: Brush the top with non-dairy milk and move to a baking sheet. I did not do this and I thought my puff pastry still came out nicely.
12. Bake for about 40 – 45 minutes checking every now and then until it’s all golden brown and gorgeous. Serve with gravy, BBQ sauce, ketchup or cranberry sauce.

This recipe reheats nicely as well. I will usually pop it back in the oven at 350 degrees for 10-15 and let it reheat. The pastry stays flaky and doesn’t get soggy.

What are you making for the Thanksgiving holiday? What are you most looking forward to? I can’t wait to get my hands on some stuff and some green bean casserole!!

If you are in need of some inspiration, check out last year’s Thanksgiving Round Up . I have a green bean casserole recipe on there from a few years back that was so good I was eating it out of the pan.