Jack Sprat, Jane Stout, and a vegetarian toddler. What can we all eat?

[slightlyglitterstained]

DP is overweight and has high blood pressure, so needs to lose some weight really. I am underweight and still breastfeeding DS (16 months) so could do with feeding up. All vegetarian. (Eat eggs, dairy). DS obviously needs plenty of fat in his diet at this age.

Any ideas for meals we can all eat, which aren't horribly unhealthy for DP but still have enough fat for me and DS? And ideally don't take forever to cook & a million ingredients (unless they can be batch cooked in advance).

Or I could just load up on cake. (Has its appeal, but not much good for DS).

How about thinks like veggie chilli, lentil spag bol etc, which are healthy and filling, but you and ds could sprinkle cheese on or add a bit of garlic bread to boost your calories? Other ideas where you could vary the carbs for fewer/more calories would be curry with rice/paratha/naan, veggie sausage casserole with boiled/roast potatoes/dumplings etc.

Your DP could do a boot camp type diet and then you and DS add some carbs to your meals?

Onykahonie I love lentil spag bol, it's my favourite meal, but DP isn't keen on it - might be worth bringing it back onto the menu occasionally though as DS might like it. Topping up the cals with cheese or garlic bread/paratha sounds good though, & fairly straightforward. (Might need to avoid cheese though, it's DP's biggest weakness after red wine & not sure he could avoid the temptation).

Ray, what's a bootcamp diet?

Does he like Quorn mince in a spag bol/chilli instead? How about soured cream/Greek yogurt/guacamole etc for extra toppings instead of cheese for you and ds?

My DH is overweight. Although we're not veggie, I tend to load his plate with veg and give him smaller portions of things like pie. It's taken a while to get there though, if I'd just whacked a load of veg on he would have freaked.

While I was bfing is also had a crap drawer which he agreed not to open.

Sour cream/yogurt's a good idea, DS will eat it but DP not too keen, so he won't be tempted to pig out on it. Guacamole also a good idea, even if DS doesn't eat it I can, and if I keep offering he might try it. (He did like avocado when weaning, just seems to have decided it's no longer food!)

JiltedJohnsJulie - We both love veg, so loading up on that is a good plan. If it wasn't for the high cal temptations/wacky carb portions (tends to cook enough pasta for three adults) DP would have a reasonably healthy diet. Unfortunately he tends to do most of the cooking so harder to set sane portions (esp when I need to be eating more than him!).

I had a crap drawer at work when pregnant. My colleagues were a bit sad when I went on mat leave and the steady supply of crisps, choc, biscuits got cut off!

There's a book by Ruth Watson that has "added extras" for the non dieter, but it's not a veggie book.