So bored of everything we eat. Please inspire me!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I'm veggie, dp and dds are now meat eaters but since I do most of the shopping (online), meal planning and cooking (though dp is v good at doing prep etc) we eat veggie 99% of the time at home.

I tend to do lots of curries, chillis etc but we're all getting a bit bored of them tbh. It's also hard because dd1 won't eat anything in a creamy/cheesy sauce and I won't eat anything with tinned tomatoes, so that rules out a lot of pasta dishes for example.

Please inspire me!

Any good recipes with tofu maybe? Or something Thai-esqu? Or something with sweet potatoes which isn't a curry or a chilli? Or an exciting pie of some sort?

Mmm, home-made burgers sound a good idea bimble - we had a BBQ in the garden on Sunday afternoon which DH organised and it was lovely, but based on sausages and burgers from the shops (all veggie)

I'm thinking we could probably make things even tastier if we tried making our own nut or bean burgers ?

Anyway, it was lovely to enjoy our garden and made a lovely last afternoon of half-term, along with a game of boule.

Anyone else have any BBQ tips to share ?

You probably don't want to hear it, but the HFW veg book has a whole section on roasting, grilling and barbecuing...

here is a light summer dish - it is for chickpea fllour pancakes. I like them eaten with youghurt and coriander chutney or with yougurt and sweet chilli sauce: . same item with another more entertaining presenter:

Another indian dish - a savoury indian 'cake' that freezes well and you can replace the veg in recipe with anyother veg that you have to hand. If you live near an Indian grocery store they usually sell the flour mix for handwo (sometimes called oondwo) to save faffing about with the soaking of all the lentils. beans etc).

Great thread, folks - my thanks to you all!

I'm a vegan breadmaking tutor, and most of my recipes reflect this - although I will include cheesy things on my courses.

I've been asked to run a 5 week vegetarian cookery course in the autumn (for the first time, so I'll be out of my comfort zone, somewhat!) and I shall enjoy reading through this thread and picking up all your ideas.

But I'd like to know from you guys - what would you consider to be essential on such a course? What would you expect to find if you came along.

I'd be very grateful for any suggestions - and thanks in advance.

In the meantime, I've got loads of vegetarian recipes - not all about bread, by any means - on my blog.

One of my favourites is curried lentil and savoy cabbage - although I'm a fan of anything with lentils. I made a Thai red curry with lentils the other day which was amazing!

Cheers, B&W

Not at all Arbitrary - I like HFW, seems to have a similar simple approach to Nigel Slater who I also like watching, as not too complicated

sorry, i forgot to add the link for handwo - here it is:

Guardian must be reading this thread :)

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/04/10-great-vegetarian-recipes

Liking 'Pock marked old woman's tofu' - will deffo try that! :)

Tonight we're having a salad with roasted pecan nuts and bacon with chicken breast, but you could swap the meat for halloumi cheese?

Hi B&W you might be best starting a new thread as your request might get lost in here.

Have just been looking through my GH veggie cookbook - omelette stuffed with veg and veggie pie with garlic/french bread crust look a bit different and easy.

Also, baked eggs, with anything (leftover mash, garlic mushrooms, roasted peppers).

Just made the spandolika feta and spinach filo thing inspired by this thread. So easy - can't wait to eat it!

We're having feta and spinach thing tonight too - the dds are having pizza! Inspired by this thread, I'm finding ways to split meals and not be quite so insistent on us all eating the same thing. Tomorrow (drum roll!) they are having chicken and I am having halloumi. :)

Hi remus, my DH & DDs are carnivores too, but we all eat veggie at home. DD1 won't go near a mushroom or a creamy sauce either, but would quite happily live on cheese if I let her!

I've been writing down the recipes we've tried (mainly so that I can remember who liked what & what I should do differently next time) - perhaps something there will inspire you? DH & I like tofu stir-fry, the DDs like all beans & lentils and we all love soup - so we eat a lot of those.

Is it specifically tinned tomatoes you don't like? Could you sub a few fresh chopped ones? Do you eat fake-meat? I'm not a huge fan of quorn, but we have the escalope things every now & then for a quick easy meal.

Thanks, Bessie. The tofu dishes look particularly worth a try - will have a proper look later.

I know this may be a bit sensitive, but are you actually a little bored with being veggie? This may sound heretical, but many of our family and friends have stopped being veggie in the last few years and have not looked back. It is hard to relinquish a position that you have striven to maintain, but I do urge you to think about it. We only eat meat which is free range and high welfare. These animals have come into existence to feed us, but they have had a good life and a good death - something we would like for ourselves! If it were not for feeding humans, they would not have existed at all. Some people are actually are super-tasters and do not like the taste of meat, in which case, you probably won't like any strong tasting food. A small number of people are food phobic: anorexic and bulimic. They have resorted to vegitarianism as a means to restrict intake in a socially acceptable way. Your family are eating meat now. Is it time for you to give it a go? Just asking. Good luck, whatever you decide.

Gosh no - I never, ever want to eat meat again. The very idea makes me feel quite sick tbh.

I use Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty a lot and it's great, and not too faffy - and you can always substitute an obscure ingredient with something similar. Also Sam Stern does some good books that my dc's particularly like, with the most obvious being his Eat Vegetarian, and I also use World Food Café 2, which has good Thai and other spicy recipes, and also East African sweet potato patties (P.42).

Do you like to barbecue?
Once the barbecue start to get going, eg no flames, I put baking potatoes wrapped in aluminium foil in to give them a headstart.

I like to make skewers with courgette, tomato, mushroom, red peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers, Aubergines and sun dried tomatoes etc. You can marinate the veg, especially Aubergines first with some olive oil, lemon and herbs like thyme or garlic.

Serve with yogurt/mayonaise/garlic and tomato ketchup and a chilli dip.

One of the other posters mentioned free range meat, but unfortunately even free range chicken and beef have now been found to contain high levels of antibiotics. The food chain has been so mucked about with in pursuit of faster and higher profits .

Fish is not necessarily healthier either due to chemical pollution.

High levels of antibiotic resistant bacteria usually found in animals who have been given antibiotics have been found both in organic and non-organic meat.

Mind you, fruit and veg are problematic too with high levels of pesticides in strawberries, apples and peaches for example.

Oh yes, Ottolenghi's recipes are wonderful - you can find some of them on the guardian website

I think what you meant to say, vintage, was, 'This may be a bit insensitive - but I'm going to say it anyway!'

Bored? I don't think so! We have a roast dinner every Sunday - with my wife having chicken every week. I can think of about 8 different foods that I have with my roasties (with variations) - risotto stuffed tomatoes, stuffed mushrooms, haggis (both of those en croute sometimes), nut roast, seitan - and, very occasionally, fake gammon or turkey, etc.

I think all of us on here would urge you to think hard about becoming veggie - for the sake of your health and the environment. But until you do, I would respectfully ask you to post elsewhere.

Sam Stern - have got all of his but they are v basic and they drive me a bit mad, as I'm sure his mum wrote them. No teenager I have ever met uses language the way that book does. It's all a bit cringe-making. BUT they are good books for getting dc cooking, which is why we bought them.

World Food Cafe - I have both of these and like them a lot (although too many flipping aubergines for my liking!).

I can see I'm going to have to get Plenty though!

Thanks for the barbecue ideas too - I don't barbecue but those ideas would work in the oven/grill too.

Bread and wine - do you make or buy your haggis? We had one at Christmas from Sainsbo's and it was lovely but they've not stocked it since. The dds really liked it too. Waitrose do one but it's expensive for the size of it.

Another Plenty recommendation here, I love this, the best thing ever to do with sprouts!

Oh, and I love to make this quinoa and broadbean salad, usually add a few extra bits to it, whatever I feel like at the time! But quinoa is quite high protein, so feels like "more than a salad", if you know what I mean.