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?

So we have sorted the beef wellington

So now whats for the other 6 nights?

(this is exhausting, bag of scampi fries for me please)

In what way is it unhealthy?

I eat meat usually twice a day but at least once a day (or fish is the second type of animal protein)

My health markers are all excellent (except for underactive thyroid I believe)

I eat a lot of vegetarian and vegan food too but always add some meat to things as its the quickest, smallest volume way of upping protein. You need to eat an awful lot of beans to replicate the amount in a chicken breast or tuna.

Linked to bowel cancer and recently to dementia. Just heading out but will find links when I get back.

Which are thankfully vegetarian!

I know about the links to bowel cancer.

But eating meat is not the same as not eating vegetables and a high fibre diet, which is a much bigger problem.

Vegetable lasagne: make it at home, take it frozen, heat it up for the first night. Salad, garlic bread. Or make a standard lasagne using a mix of lentils and veggie mince instead of beef. Or make one meat lasagne and one veggie one.

Nut roast served with veggies, roasties and gravy (don't use a tomato sauce like the one in this recipe) The nut roast recipe is excellent though and it freezes beautifully: make it in advance, take it frozen or take it up there fresh, freeze until needed:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/nut-loaf

Veggie Thai green curry: use a jar or a pot of Thai curry paste if you don't want to cook from scratch. Add you own pre-cooked chicken to your portion if you really can't manage a week without meat/ veg, Add Quorn piees to the veggie portions.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/vegetarian-thai-green-curry

Quick easy creamy lemon prawn pasta: veggie base (add peas). Serve the veggies first and then add prawns to your portions.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/lemony-prawn-courgette-tagliatelle

Veggie enchiladas: really good. Complicated to make but you can make in advance and freeze, then thaw and bung in the oven on the day. Or make the filling and the sauce separately, then assemble and bake in your rental cottage.

Veggie chilli and rice or fajitas with guacamole, mango salsa (mango, coriander, lime), salad. Or just serve the chilli with baked potatoes.

Root veg stew with veggie herb dumplings. Serve with veggie sausages for the veggies and meat sausages for the meat eaters.

Loads of other lovely veggie dishes here:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/category/vegetarian-collections

Nothing to get upset about.

@Octavia64 how does she struggle? Won’t eat anything until the meat is accompanying it? Would she not eat the veggie stir fry but would eat it if you put prawns in? Genuinely curious, I know some oldies can get a bit fixed in their ways! My mum was determined never to eat avocados until she did by accident at mine once and declared to her surprise that they don’t taste of much 🤣

I'd plan for most meals the way you referenced in your original post-things that are substantial enough w/o meat and meat on the side to be added for meat eaters.
Also at least 1-2 nights when people split up and go out on their own etc.

Breakfasts seem easy enough to omit meat from.
Lunches-salads or sandwiches with plenty of options
Dinners-burgers w/faux meat burgers
pasta w/meat on side
stir fry w/meat cooked separately or remove a large portion then add meat to remainder
this blog post has some good ideas
https://www.budgetbytes.com/flexible-recipes-that-feed-vegetarians-and-meat-eaters/

you seem to be overthinking, it’s really a non issue. Half my family are vegi, we just make 2 of the same type of dish, it’s really not much more work. At the weekend we were all together and made a meat lasagna and a veggie one. Just chill and have a lovely time.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/nutrition/becoming-a-vegetarian

https://www.ndph.ox.ac.uk/news/new-study-finds-lower-risks-of-cancer-for-vegetarians-pescatarians-and-low-meat-eaters

https://zoe.com/learn/what-is-a-plant-based-diet

I think you’re overthinking it if I’m honest.
i was vegetarian for a long time (not anymore, but that is irrelevant to this).

Most vegetarians know their dietary requirements are theirs and theirs only. Only the most militant vegetarians object to meat eater’s choices. When I was vegetarian it was a bit rarer than today and still no problems.

These days there are some superb vegetarian options so less of a problem. But, if you want to eat meat then that shouldn’t be a problem either.
It is good practice to use separate cooking utensils for meat/non-meat products and maybe think about cooking oils etc. But generally vegetarians have made a personal choice and are used to sharing lives with meat eaters and adapt accordingly.

Spose its ok

Wheres the Wellington though?

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/nutrition/dementia-diet

I can't see how eating meat twice a day is compatible with this.

Yes, low meat eaters, meaning those with plenty of veg and fibre in their diets

That is the key

Its not the presence of meat that is the problem, its the absence of vegetables, green matter, fibre.

Whether she’s “sacrificing her enjoyment of food” isn’t really relevant here. The fact is, the OP has rejected three perfectly valid options (despite the lack of a fourth). It’s fine if the OP doesn’t want to eat vegetarian all week - I’m vegetarian, and I wouldn’t expect that of others. But she doesn’t want to cook vegetarian food either. And she doesn’t want to cook non-vegetarian food and add a pre-prepared meet free option. Surely at least one of these could work?

yes low meat eating is what I aim for, that isn't twice a day !

We will be taking it in turns to make dinner.

The point at which this arrangement was agreed was the logical time for you and/or the other non-vegetarians who'll be taking a turn cooking to say that you'll be cooking meat some nights and it might not be suitable and work out what she'll do on those nights (or decide the taking turns arrangement won't work for everyday). As things stand, it's reasonable for the vegetarian - since she knows you know she's vegetarian and have catered to that in the past - to expect that there will be some kind of reasonably balanced non-meat meal for her to eat on the nights she isn't assigned cooking duties. If it's important to you, I'd bring it up now and see what she says.

I think it would be a bit shitty for the vegetarian to be expected to take a turn cooking but not be cooked for.

Well it specifies to cut down on red meats but not other meats. I dont eat a lot of red meat as it doesnt agree with me, but I'll eat it if I can

The diet itself is more than compatible with eating meat once or twice a day, it doesnt say you cant have chicken at lunch and salmon at tea, what it emphasises quite rightly is to increase and include various types of vegetables and other items like pulses and nuts

I eat cheese every day, nuts every day, lots of milk every day, chicken every day, tuna/salmon or prawns nearly every day. Some tofu. Veggies and dried fruit (I dont eat fresh fruit)

I eat a largely mediterranean diet, lots and lots of olive oil and salad stuffs, however i eat very very small portions of things.

Maybe the gf can just eat meat for the week, I’m sure mumsnet can give her some amazing wand easy recipes to try new stuff.

Surely it depends on volume. I had 50g of cooked chicken with my salad at lunch.

I could have the same again at tea, but I think I have some feta to use up, not sure whats there.

Why should anyone have to?
There are four of them I assume it's two couples. Why should 3 of them eat what the other one wants for the whole week.
I'm a meat eater who will happily eat some veggie meals but if I want to eat meat on holiday I will.
OP don't let it worry you, it doesn't have to be hard.
Have a nice time

That doesn’t make sense though because meat eaters can eat vegetarian food but vegetarians can’t eat meat.

So we have sorted the beef wellington

Have we, though? The op still thinks she can get a Wellington in the oven in under 90 minutes start to finish. So she's either making a crap Wellington, or not making it from scratch, or making some entirely different dish which she mistakes for a Wellington, or has several sous chefs prepping different elements at once. 😂

Toad in the hole is easy for both meat eaters and veggies. You can use the same batch of batter, do a big meat sausage one and a smaller veggie sausage one for the girlfriend. With creamy mash and onion gravy (you don’t need meat to make the gravy. Onions, bit of beer and some bisto granules- most gravy granules are veggie)
The best veggie sausage imo are Cauldron Lincolnshire sausages which are in the chiller aisle.