Self catering holiday with a veggie for a week

[Lorey]

Later in the year I have an air BnB booked in the lakes. DB will be bringing his new gf who is a veggie. We will be taking it in turns to make dinner. Whenever db and his gf come to stay with us for the weekend we make veggie food - not hard for a weekend with curries, pastas etc.

i can see how on a couple of nights we could cater for both ie we have burgers and the gf will have a halloumi burger. Or we’ll cook chicken separately and add to creamy pesto pasta for meat eaters in a separate pan

I’m just curious how your family would go about it. I reckon our meals will be mostly veggie including brekkie. Bit annoying. But thinking about it if I were the veggie I would say you guys crack on with non veggie meals and where I can’t easily be catered for I will sort myself out. As opposed to impacting everyone else for an entire week

what do you guys do?

I was married to a veggie for 18 years. Mostly I ate veggie too, or separated whatever sauce was cooking into two and added meat to mine. It was never an issue. You don't eat meat at every meal or every day anyway presumably?

I’m an omnivore and that’s my choice.

There is more and more evidence to support that the ability to eat vegetarian is largely genetic and I although eating veggie for a week won't kill anyone it can feel to some highly unpleasant/ difficult / like you're missing something. Definitely a pain on holiday.

But here indeed I'd just crack on and have veggie options. Having a cooked breakfast at least once on holiday is something I value!

Eating meat is also a choice, but most meat eaters also eat food that is vegetarian.

It's very easy to accommodate, and only selfish asshats would point blank refuse to make the small adjustments needed to cater for friends and family that don't eat meat.

I'm vegetarian , haven been for over 30 years. I'm the only one in my family & friendship group, I wouldn't expect people to not eat meat around me , however I prob
Wouldn't cook it on behalf of anyone else .
You shouldn't go without your English breakfast if that's what you'd like .
She can eat similar with no meat or meat alternative

No, eating meat is the choice.

I’m the vegetarian at our family salt catered holidays and I we eat communally and everyone is happy with how it goes. We’re not a family of big breakfast eaters and so breakfast is a fend for yourself meal, with fruit, yogurt, crumpets, muffins, toast. We generally have one main meal a day with the other other being leftovers, quiche, salad bits, soup etc. We also tend to bring along most the meals we make frozen, to make it easier and because self catering kitchens can be unpredictable. Meals also tend to be communal family style, with everyone (other than me) eating both the meat and vegetarian options. Theres no reason you can’t have your beef wellington as part of a spread.

Meals which have worked have been Indian food with meat and vegetable curries, rice and salad; Mexican food with bean chilli, pulled beef, salsas and rice; spicy mushroom lasagna and aubergine and ragú parmigiana with salad; root vegetable tagine, chicken stew.

Man, you'd struggle with our family holidays where the shared food needs to be both veggie and gluten free. Luckily we all appreciate being together more than we do missing out on the odd steak.

I think everyone is right, you just have some meals with an optional meat component. And then maybe you take yourself out for a fry-up breakfast or a bistro lunch or whatever one day. Everyone doesn't need to eat together all the time. The way we usually play it is everyone sorts their own breakfast from options we have in, lunch depends on the activity of the day, and dinner is when everyone definitely joins - and that's the meal we make sure suits all dietary requirements. I don't really think about it any more. I'd rather everyone was well fed and felt included tbh.

I’d just eat veggie for the week. But we eat quite a lot of veggie anyway.

Omg 😂😂 there is no reason whatsoever you can't have your precious beef wellington.

She isn't stopping you from eating anything, or forbidding the use of meat in her presence.

Some people don't half love to make mountains out of molehills.

There is more and more evidence to support that the ability to eat vegetarian is largely genetic

Lol what?

Oh absolutely. I really enjoy a posh meal at home. And I enjoy cooking. Not multiple courses but a fancy lasagna or homemade bread and soup.

We’ll be in the lakes in Winter. Beyond a bike ride/walks with the dogs we’ll very much be taking it easy.

Our meals on holiday and definitely nicer than our typical mid week food.

I don't think in the OP's case this has happened, nut there are plenty of posters here who have said that the OP should be entirely vegetarian for the whole week.

It's not so much the GF in the OP's case but the posters replying here.

Why should they have to. It's a holiday. My diet is meat heavy because I love meat and because I am very low energy without it. I don't feel good without meat and while I'm happy to accommodate a vegetarian or vegan, I'm not happy to go without it myself for more than a meal or two.

*I'd rather everyone was well fed and felt included tbh."

100% this. I don't understand some people's attitudes at all.

I’m guessing I’m making things harder than needs be. The idea of us eating a lovey home cooked meal and the getting the gf a ready meal veggie version just seems a bit rank. A bit of an after thought imo.

Ie I wouldn’t be overly happy if everyone had these amazing home cooked pizzas and I was given a frozen one. Especially on a nice holiday.

But why would you need to do that? While you're cooking your lovely homemade meal with a meat dish included, make her something lovely and homemade too. It's simple enough.

That's a daft example - if you're making 4 pizzas (or 2, one for you & your DH, one for DB and his girlfriend), you can easily make one vegetarian!

I've found one study from Oct 2023 which speculates that specific genes might mean that some people find it hard to stick to a vegetarian diet because possibly their bodies might not be able to produce some specific lipids it needs on a strict vegetarian diet. But it's one study, with no firm conclusions and with a very speculative theory as a result. I couldn't find any other research into this, from a quick web search. Perhaps @Commonsense22 could direct us to the body of research on this?

Make a Vegetarian Wellington - I do it regularly and I'm not the best cook. I generally use finely chopped / grated onions, carrots, celery, cabbage or mushrooms if I have them, some roughly chopped walnuts, teaspoon of marmite and some grated cheese - and then I usually find it all gets eaten by the meat eaters 🤦🏼‍♀️

I second an Aubergine Parmigiana too 🙂

Pizzas are a bit different - unless you are gluten free, it's easy to have every pizza made to suit every individual.

It's not 'rank' at all. I'm sure most vegetarians would be happy with a similar bought in item.

It is rank.

As you love cooking and plan to spend hours of your holiday making fancy meals, why not find some fancy veggie recipes to try?

Well I mean in terms of the quality disparity. Of course pizzas can be veggie. I wouldn’t want to give myself something lovely and home cooked and shove something processed in the oven for db’s gf.

I'd eat veggie for a week. It's not a long time.

I don’t cook for hours. An hour/hour and a half tops. With plenty of red wine for company.