What can i serve a vegetarian child, that is quick and easy and child friendly

[Diddle]

Hi,

I have a new boy coming, just as a one off, he might be here for tea, depending on what time his mom finishes work. He is vegetarian, i Have never cared for a child who is vegetarian and don't think i have ever served a meal without meat. His moms says he'd be happy with beans on toast, and it doesn't matter too much if he doesn't have a major meal. But i want to provide him with more than beans on toast, but if i am going to prepare something it needs to be child friendly and something the other children can have too, anyone got any good recipes etc??

feel free to cat me them if they're too long to fit on here.

Hope someone can help.

My dd isn't vegetarian, but one of her favourite meals at the moment is.

Stuffed Mushrooms

1 large flat mushroom
Half a small carrot, finely diced
Few slices of leek, finely chopped
Few slices from a stick of celery, finely diced
2 tablespoons tinned chopped tomatoes
Grated cheese
Olive oil

Take the stalk from the mushroom, rub the mushroom all over with a little olive oil and put it in a roasting tray. Chop the stalk.

Put a little oil in a saucepan and cook the stalk, leek, carrot and celery for a couple of minutes. Add the tomato and bubble for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in some of the cheese to melt it. Use the mix to cover the top of the mushroom, the top with more cheese and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Carrot & lentil soup. Heat onion, carrots & garlic in a saucepan then add lentils and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, simmer for 30 minutes and puree.

Vegetable rosti. Grate the following vegetables, potatoes, courgettes, carrot and onion mix them together and season with pepper. Melt butter and oil in a pan, drop tablespoon size mixture into the pan and flatten to form round cakes. Cook for about 4-5 minutes each side.

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mmmm, you're making my mouth water already, thanks girls, i'd love all of those, lets hpe the kids do

You need to check whether your cheese is veggie or not if you are using it. It may well be that the family aren't that strict about it, but you need to be sure. Also, if you are using pasta, you need to know whether they eat eggs (use durum wheat pasta if in any doubt!)

... so speaks a very strict veggie childminder ...

I am trying to think of something which a meat eating child would not be scared of as well. The ultimate veggie convenience food is pesto pasta, but do check it is a vegetarian version as ThePrisoner says. Children seem to adore it (me too).

You can also get quite tasty veggie sausages and burgers, quorn for instance, which are a bit healthier than the meaty equivalent.

If he eats eggs, a cheese or mushroom omelette usually goes down well. My son loves pitta breads with hummus dip and salad for tea. These are all fast and easy, hope there is something suitable.

I recently had two vegetarian kids to tea and I gave them home made pizza.

rice add mixed vegetable assortment (I use frozen to get a good variety)after it's part cooked and a tomato sauce made from reduced down tinned tomatoes

optionally sprinkle with cheese

chick pea patties with tomato sauce,

bolognese sauce with soya or quorn mince

DS loves

tin of tomatoes, onion {softened} with pasta and loads of grated cheese on top

pitta bread pizzas, basically home meal pitta bread, tomato paste cheese and whatever toppings you want to add..only take about 20mins including prep

should be wholemeal..not home meal

I'm loving these idea's too!!

my personal favourite - macaroni & cheese !!! have you looked into going to the library and getting a veggie cookbook for kids ? my local library has alot of children cookbooks, some veggie. there's a sara lewis book called "Veggie Food for Kids" which has over 100 ideas like baby cauliflower cheese, bean burgers, spinach dahl, thai noodles and risotto etc. Vegetable puff pie is also yummy. Just make it like a normal steak pie with puff pastry but fill with mushrooms, leeks and courgette instead.

broccoli cheese?

cauliflower cheese
jacket pots with beans and cheese
veggy pizza
pasta veg and cheese cause (or tom sauce)
anything mincey using quorn or veggy mince
scrambled egg on toast

falafel?

pasta with a tomato sauce and veg (or Jamie Oliver's very veggie sauce, it's on his website)
beans on toast with veg
scrambled/boiled egg and orange/apple juice to get the iron from the egg
omelette with cheese and red pepper chopped up small
baked potato with beans/chese or hummus if he eats it
cheese on toast
tomato and cheese pizza
peanut butter sandwiches
fruit, sandwiches, yoghurts
tomato soup
noodles and stir fry veg
veggie sausages with beans and potato wedges (skins on)

think you have found enough ideas to feed an army of veggie children. Veggie fingers and burgers cheese on toast. shepherds pie using lentils instead of meat or just loads of veg.
Roast veg chilli, can be made in advance. Jackets and you can do different toppings for veggie and non veggie.
All the children can eat veggie stuff so when your veggie child is there give them all the same, dont mak e it difficult for yourself

I'm a veggie, so will be doing loads of veggie meals for my mindies. Not everyone does but personally I love Quorn - it's very versatile and is a great meat alternative,. It comes in loads of varieties such as mince, pieces, fillets as well as meatballs.

I use it in Spag Bol, lasagna, shepherd's pie.....

Mushroom burgers
1 onion finely chopped, 1 garlic clove crushed, 1tsp ground corriander, 1tsp ground cumin, 250g finely chopped mushrooms, 1 can canellini beans (i tend to use butter beans as thats what I have in the house) 2 tbsp fresh parsley (or a splodge of dried)
Fry onion garlic & spices 3-4 mins, add mushrooms and cook for 2 mins until cooked. put half beans in a blender to a coarse paste, mix into mushroom mix with remaining beans. Season. When cool enough to handle shape into 4 (adult sized) burgers with floured hands and fry for 1-2 mins on each side.
I often find the mix a bit sticky and and a bit of flour to thicken it.
Serve in a roll with salad and ketchup (or whatever else you would usually have with burgers.)

I have a great pasta sauce recipe that kids always seem to love. You just roast some red peppers and a whole bulb of garlic in the oven until the skin blisters on the peppers and you can pull it off (let it cool first!)
Then dry toast some pine nuts (don't have to bother though - you can just chuck them in raw) and add these to the de-skinned peppers and the squeezed out mushy garlic. Bung in some parmesan and whizz it with a food processor, blender etc (I use a hand one) and serve with pasta. It's yummy.

Um, it's just struck me that my suggestion sounds incredibly fussy. It's really not - honest!
Especially if you don't brown the pine nuts.