2 questions - please help!

[janeitebus]

Question One - what do you serve with macaroni cheese. I'd be especially grateful for ideas that offset the blandness a bit. Not meat please; am veggie.

Question two - for other veggies out there please.
Can you think of any veggie variations of traditional "meat and two vege" type meals. DP and DD2 love meat but I want to wean them off it a bit. Also I don't want to have to cook two meals every night!I've thought of -
veggie shephered's pie;
yorkshire puds, vege and veggie sausages;
veggie burgers with salad and buns, with homemade potato wedges;
but am now stuck!

Many thanks!

veggie curry
stuffed peppers or butternut squash (with rice and veggies)
baked sweet potatoes

if you don't mind using quorn mince then spag bol, tacos are all good

might i suggest my very own vegetarian mousssakka? it's really delicious and goes down well with avid carnivores (of which i am one). serve with a lemony green salad.

I do macaroni cheese with tomatoes on top or I mix in brocolli and cauliflower?

Can't beat the good old nut roast in my opinion! With lots of gravy! The Cranks cook books have some lovely recipes for things.

Great ideas all, thanks. Keep 'em coming! I'm looking more for the type of thing that I can serve with potatoes and vege, rather than rice, cous cous etc, as I have plenty of recipes for veggie curry etc. But they'd prefer a varient on a roast dinner type meal more often than they currently get it!

I had a really good recipe for bean burgers and I dont know wtf I've done with it.

I'll hunt and post if I find it.

The thing we most often serve in our house with macaroni cheese is a home-made coleslaw - somehow the contrast between hot and cold and 'wet' and crunchy just works wonderfully! And a bit of garlic bread doesn't go amiss either...

Still thinking on the meat & 2 veg substitutes... we tend to either go for the meat (obviously you won't!) or just have out and out veggie stuff. No substitutes as such.

tbh that seems to defeat the point of vegetarian food for a meat-eater. i don't want to eat ersatz meat meals, you know, veg and two veg. i'd rather have a steak, thanks. but a delicious lasagne, moussaka, spicy beanburgers and sweet potato chips, tofu stir fry, roast veg and harissa couscous... now you're talking.

I add chopped boiled eggs (and lardons but obviously not for vegetarians) to macaroni cheese.

Asparagus parcels

Puff pastry (I buy ready rolled) cut into 12/15cm squares.
Gruyere cut into cubes
Creme fraiche
Asparagus steamed then cut into 3cm bits
Parmesan grated

Mix creme fraiche, gruyere and paremsan. Place a dollop onto each pastry square and then put aspragus on top. Pull in corners of pastry to make parcels and pop in oven for 30 minutes.

I also do similar thing with peas and mint mashed together, boursin and some wilted spinach. I make these in circles though and place the larger cirle over the top.

vege lasagne either with vege mince or roasted veg is lovely.

For the macaroni cheese you can get bacos - which are vege (possibly even vegan) smoky flavoured soya protein things, crunchy. Very nice.

Other meal ideas
falafels in pitta with salad.
vege lasagne either with vege mince or roasted veg is lovely.

Also places like www.bbc.co.uk/food lets you recipe search, you can select vege to bring up random meal ideas or based on certain ingrediants.

I'm with you on that one Aitch. I never make roast-like meals in my house, except for Christmas day. That reminds me...once a year I make a parsnip roulade which might be what you are after Janeitebus, I just save it for Christmas to make it more 'Christmassy' IYSWIM.

I do this a lot very tasty, but more a winter dish.

Not sure if I am being much help.

Mung - the asparagus parcels are just the sort of thing I'm looking for.

I agree really - I could live without roast type meals except at Christmas too but it's what they like best, so I'd like to indulge them occasionally!

Nut roast sounds good, although I'm yet to find a recipe I really like. Pie or tart type things good too, so ideas for those would be great. Then they could have them with potatoes and vege whilst dd1 and I could have them with salad!

Portonovo - I love homemade coleslaw with veggie lasagne, for the very reason you've given!

I make a lot of pasta with veg in the sauce or mixed in. Put cheese on top. Everyone likes this.

quiches, then? oh, my mum used to make this delicious tomato tart with shortcrust pastry when we were kids. i think it had worcestershire sauce in it... must ask her for the recipe.