If you are not vegetarian/ vegan and don't have to cater for them have to cater for veggies/ vegans

[notacooldad]

How often do you use things like tofu and tempeh.
How many veggie meals do you have deliberately, ( rather than a veggie meal by default such as beans on toast cauliflower cheese for example)

No reason apart from being curious following on from aconversation with my friend this afternoon.

Never! My brothers ex wag pescatarian but mainly vegetarian so did veg starter and fish main usually for her and whatever I was doing for everyone else
I hate tofu or meat replacements, so struggle. Thankfully almost everyone I know is omnivorous

Tofu: more than once a week, in Chinese or Japanese food.

Meat substitutes: never. It’s UPF garbage, unnecessary given we eat the real thing.

Vegetarian meals: frequently enough to not even notice.

I never used to but over the last 3-4 months, we have been actively choosing to incorporate vegetarian meals into our diet. We figured it’s not healthy to eat meat/chicken everyday and it’s not sustainable either. An overconsumption of meat isn’t good for the environment and is probably the reason why chicken fillets seem to be pumped with all sort to make them grow at a an unnatural rate or increase in size. Until the end of last year we would eat meat/poultry daily & our meals didn’t feel complete without it.

If I’m just cooking for me, I often have vegetarian meals but eat vegan much less frequently. I wouldn’t cook tofu or tempeh just for me.

That may be because I have a vegan daughter, so when she is here I cook a lot of tofu!

We’re not vegetarian- I’d quite like to be but the rest of the household aren’t so keen. This week’s meals:

Bean chilli, sweet potatoes, sour cream, guac, tortillas

Butternut squash and spinach lasagne

Mushroom pizzas

Teriyaki chicken and rice

Roast chicken

Penne arrabiata

Fish and chips

I eat by preference quite a lot of vegetable-only meals. But my DSs and DH are all about protein, so we tend to eat quite a lot of meat and fish as a family.

And, yes, I know that tofu and tempeh etc have protein. But they are poor sources of complete proteins compared to fish or meat. Other than in particular dishes (ma po tofu is the only one I can think of now), I also think that they taste horrible. And even then, I would hardly be having ma po tofu as my last takeaway on this earth. Not when there’s crispy duck. And ribs.

I meant deliberately chosing to go meat free rather than thinking ' oh we'll have cheese on toast or mac and cheese for tea,'.

We don't make an intentional decision to eat vegetarian, we've made intentional decision to eat varied food and it comes with it.
No tofu though, it doesn't agree with me. Eggs, cheese, lentils and beans are our favourite bases

Yeah I cook a lot of vegetarian food, occasionally it's vegan. I use tofu quite a lot depending on the dish and time as I find you need to press it well and marinate it for a while to be to my taste and texture 😅 (I often use it in curries, sweet and sour dishes)
I do use beans a lot (black beans for enchiladas, fajitas, kidney beans i make refried with for quesadillas, butter beans for stews, cannelleni beans in some dishes, mixed beans for salads)
I also use chickpeas a lot, sometimes Spiced for nibbles, often with flatbread meals, salads too.
Cheese is a big staple, hallumi, feta, very mature cheddar as my toddler likes strong tastes, parmesean I use in my pesto mostly but use to top bolognase or meatball type dishes.

I never use alternatives like fake meats burgers etc. I just make by own vegetables burgers, nuggets. I use to eat them years ago, but I had hyperemesis in my first pregnancy and developed a massive aversion, even now the smell, or whatever it is makes me ugh..its strange didn't know food aversions could be permanent 😂 same with alcohol the smell if i walked in a pub would set me off, but I'm happy that one stayed 😂

We have more vegetarian meals mostly mainly due to budget and my ridiculous fear of not cooking it properly, I end up over cooking due to worrying and then it's ruined. So I often use meat in the slow cooker.
I do fish occasionally for the kids (i want them to like it) I cant stand fish :( nor DH..I think its a side effect of growing up though as it was always avoided by my family.