Please help me to find some recipes to match these very annoying criteria

[cheapandcheerful]

Hi everyone!

We have a veggie language student coming to live with us for a few months. We are catering for her and I would usually easily and happily be able to convert to vegetarianism in order to accommodate her.

However, other members of the family and their food requirements are making the task seem like a very daunting one! DH is lactose intolerant and a big meat-eater. Dd2 is extremely fussy and will not generally eat vegetables.

At the moment, all I can thing of is to cook some of our usual things with meat substitues (we cook a lot of curry, chilli, pasta dishes etc). But we will lose a lot of our regular recipes due to the veggie thing.

So, does anyone have any recommended recipes in which either the meat or the dairy are easily added/removed to accommodate all the various needs of my awkward family??
I really don't want to have to cook separate meals!

I do a selection of vegetable with meat on the side - so the meat is a side dish almost. If I do burgers I do falafel for the non meat eaters. Puy lentils are a great meat substitute in shepherds pie or lasagne.

Great Couscous Salad recipe

450g fresh spinach, washed and chopped or 225g frozen spinach, thawed
225ml brown rice
1 teaspn butter
1 tablespn oil
1 onion finely chopped
450ml hot water
110g grated Cheddar cheese
2 large eggs, beaten
2 tablespn chopped parsley
freshly grated nutmeg
salt and fresh black pepper

2 tablespns wholewheat crumbs
1 tablspn melted butter
a couple of pinches cayenne pepper

Serves 2 - 3

Preheat oven to Gas 4 180 C
Heat butter and oil in pan and soften onion. Stir in rice and stir to coat. Add hot water, stir once then simmer for 40 minutes,covered, until tender.
When cooked, cool then mix with cheese, stir in eggs and parsley and chopped spinach. Season well and add some grated nutmeg.
place in oiled pie dish; mix breadcrumbs, butter and cayenne and sprinkle over the top. Bake in oven 35 minutes.
Take out a small portion before adding cheese for your dh

Will she eat fish?

Sorry that's two recipes above - the couscous salad and Baked spinach and brown rice one.

Ooh that rice one sounds really nice! Thanks!

Lactose intolerant is a fairly easy fix. You can find lactose-free milk/cheese/cream cheese etc in most places if you hunt for it. Hopefully he likes those things and the lactose is the only issue :) Doesn't taste any different so you can just sub it in in place of the regular stuff.

With the meat/veggie refusers, I'd do more help yourself type meals. Like fajitas with tortillas, Quorn/chicken, rice, fried peppers etc that people can sort themselves out with. Could do a roast too with an oven-baked veggie option and then veg/potatoes/sausages etc.

So tough when you have lots of diets to cater for!

Maybe batch cook meat and veggie versions of chilli/curry/bolognaise etc and freeze so that everyone eats 'something out of the freezer with rice' or 'something out of the freezer with pasta' which are our staples! Or say one night you make meat curry and defrost a veggie curry and everyone has the trimmings. Next time meat eaters get defrosted curry and you make a new batch of veggie. Which of your regular recipes would you lose owing to needing to be vegetarian and we can try to suggest veggie versions?