Has anyone got a teenage veggie who eats neither meat or fish?

[queenceleste]

I would love to hear about some of your staple recipes.

well nobody has a vegetarian that eats either meat or fish!

Vegetarian food is incredibly varied. What type of things are you looking for?

does it have to be a teenager? I have a veggie DH and a veggie 4yo DD so we're pretty much a veggie household. Staples are:

pasta - squillions of veggie pasta sauces out there. We make veggie spag bol using canned puy lentils instead of mince.

curries, again loads out there, we do Jamie's South Indian one

HFW's North African stew with couscous

veggie sausages/fingers - you'll prob have to try different varieties to get ones you like.

Stir frys

jacket spuds with cheese and beans

um... will keep thinking!

None of the kids are veggie but lots of their friends are:
mexican translates well to veggie: veg fajitas (peppers, onions, courgettes, aubergine stir dfreid with seasioning served with usual accompaniements. Beany burritos, tacos, enchiladas etc.

loads of different veggie indian options: dhaal, curries, bhajies.

eggs and cheese are your friends. A baked potato can be topped with veggies and cheese as well as anything else.

i have even been known to do a meat free full english using veggie sausages (delicious) and quorn ham (which isn't palatable particulalry to meat eaters but the teens didn't care) along with beans, eggs, hash browns, mushrooms etc.

If you are trying to support one vegetarian in a carniobvore family bne sure to start freezing meal size portions so that you can have something quickly avaialbale when they choose to eat alongside the family.

For roast dinners: use veg oil for your potatoes and yorkies so only the meat and gravy are meatish, then provide meat free sausages or nut roast for the veggie.

Thanks, of course, he originally continued eating fish for awhile! So i had more scope for family dinners.

I must try spag bol with lentils because the quorn mince spag bol was minging the three or four times I've made it. Altho he likes other quorn products.

I find making really yummy vegetarian food is harder work in terms of producing the same amount of flavour but I think that's just because I am a novice veggie cook, up to a point, and I need to have staples that I can rely on, preferably which might also feed my insanely carnivorous and pescifile dh, and hugely fussy eating dd.

thanks momb, great ideas.

Just re your comment about yummy-ness-for-effort: when I first went veggie (25-odd years ago) I noticed that my tastebuds changed - I noticed the difference between different types of vegetables much more than I had when I was eating meat. It felt as if meat was such a strong flavour (and also so valued culturally as 'the main thing') that that was the main flavour I noticed but when it wasn't there, my taste buds were free to notice other flavours, IYSWIM. So I'd ask your teenager what they think of the flavour, rather than just relying on your own sense of taste if you are still eating meat and fish.

Sympathy about the competing needs and desires! We all eat veggie but the kids are pretty fussy and it drives me nuts thinking of meals to suit everyone.

Thanks Lovage, good point, it's just sometimes you want something really fast and I think clever people have a load of stuff in the freezer ready to cook. Otherwise quick food is often not so good for you.
I am starting to learn and I think you are so right about flavour and subtlety.
There's a veggie restaurant in Stoke Newington, is it called Rasa? The best food I've ever had I think: no animals required!

We eat quite a lot of veggie meals, favourites are:
Broad bean risotto
Vegetable fajitas
Bean burgers
Ratatouille
Spinach and sweet potato curry
Vegetable stew and dumplings
Roasted veg with spicy cous cous
Melanzane parmiagana
As well as making loads of really tasty veg based soups:
French onion
Brocolli and Stilton
Mixed veg and kale
Minestrone

Does he like halloumi? I use that in lots of recipes where meat-eaters would use bacon. It's salty like bacon and you can dry-fry (or oil-fry it) and it holds it's shape. So in cubes with pasta and a tomato sauce or with roasted carbs (in slices). Then you could just do bacon for the meat eaters and halloumi for him (or, who knows, your carnivorous DP might go for halloumi - it is very umami, which I think is one of the things people often like in red meat).

If my kids liked proper tomato sauce, I'd make vats of it and freeze it in small portions- that gives you the umami tastes as well (sorry, I know it's not all about the umami!) and you can then add other stuff to make it more interesting and proteinous. Chickpeas works really well, if he'll eat them.

Quick (15 mins or less) healthy meals we do include:

Pittas with humous, grated carrot and felafels (either bought ones or the sort you make up from dried mixture - add water, leave 5 mins, fry 5 mins)

Pasta, pesto, peas, with toasted sunflower seeds sprinkled on top (dry fry in frying pan for less than 5 mins - delicious! Quite different from untoasted sunflower seeds. Same goes for pumpkin seeds)

Corn torillas / Staffs oatcakes / other flat round things like pancakes with a quick filling (previously-made tom sauce and a tin of beans, or a tin of Heinz fajita beans, or grated cheese and pesto)

Noodles with instant peanut sauce (peanut butter, water to dilute to pouring consistency, teriyaki sauce if liked, some instant veg like peas, sweetcorn, tinned water chestnuts or bamboo if liked)

You could probably add meaty chunks of some sort to all of these to make them whole-family friendly. Maybe not the pittas?!

I cook for meat-eating wider family fairly regularly and usually find it is easier to start with a veggie meal and then add some meat than to start with a meat-based meal and try to adapt it for veggies.

I can recommend this recipe:
www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ultimate-veggie-chili-recipe.html

I added twice as much cumin powder though.
It was lovely!