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Veggie dd meaty ds

9 replies

BaffledMum123 · 05/02/2021 17:26

I'm getting stressed out thinking about each supper, as my 15 yo daughter is veggie, (not vegan) and my son would ideally have meat (or fish, if pushed) at every meal & doesn't like beans. Any one out there is the same boat? I have one meal everyone likes - quorn spag bol. Ds doesn't know it's quorn... so everyone happy. My ds makes a delicious "Enchilada Pie", (check it out on BBC good food), but ds won't eat it - so he'll have super noodles that night!

I'd love some cunning recipes where I can serve everyone almost the same thing...

OP posts:
Fivemoreminutes1 · 05/02/2021 18:03

There are a few different ways you can do it.
The first options is to cook vegetarian side dishes, then just serve a different protein for the vegetarians and meat-eaters. You’ll all be eating 90% the same, so there won’t be too many additional pans to wash. I know a lot of vegetarians aren’t fond of meat substitutes, but they’re really useful for this kind of meal. Veggie sausages, soya ‘chicken’ nuggets, grilled Quorn ‘steaks’ – they can all be used as one-for-one replacements for their meaty equivalents.
I’d do this for roast dinners, burgers, hot dogs, bangers and mash.

Another option is to cook a vegetarian meal, and then scatter some kind of meat or fish on top for those who want it. I sometimes find it helpful to do a roast/pulled chicken or roast/pulled pork once a week so that we have some cooked meat on hand for adding in at the end. You can add pulled chicken right at the end to: enchiladas, fajitas and stuffed peppers. Roast chicken can be added at the end to a chickpea and couscous salad or tagine. I add the cooked pork at the end to dishes like curries and stir fries. It's also useful to have bacon lardons for frying and adding right at the end to egg fried rice, carbonara, risotto and lentil casserole.
Make a bunch of beef meatballs and keep them in the freezer, so that a veggie tomato sauce for pasta can get a beefy boost when needed. Also, lamb meatballs are great to throw into a chickpea and vegetable tagine over some couscous, or can be part of a tapas or mezze dinner.

Another option is to use two separate pans, which might sound like the equivalent of making two separate meals, but it’s not! If you’re making a stew or casserole, you can make the exact same thing in two different pans, with barely any extra effort. Chop all your veg, and rather than dumping them into one pan, separate them into two. All the other ingredients can be added to both pans, with meat added to one, and some kind of veggie protein added to the other. Sure, you’ll have two pans to wash instead of one, but there’s otherwise the same amount of prep work and cooking time. It's easy to make two small toad in the holes from one batter mix and just use different sausages. This oven-baked frittata is a good veggie dish if you fry the bacon separately and use two separate oven dishes, leaving the bacon out of one of them www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3077673/bacon-and-ricotta-ovenbaked-frittata
It’s worth making a big batch of these kinds of meals. By the time you’ve started prepping, it’s not really any extra effort to make a larger amount. Stews and soups freeze really well, so you can freeze any leftovers in portions, to make for a quick and easy dinner another night.

DuaLipaSuction · 05/02/2021 18:05

We like these fajitas and my meat loving DS will eat them. Usually I get a "where's the meat?" Comment if I try to serve vegetarian food.

Once you've cooked the peppers and onions, you could take out DD's portion and add cooked chicken for DS maybe?

We also like this pie which I'm sure you could do with Quorn instead of beef.

AtleastitsnotMonday · 05/02/2021 19:03

Could you get your sun on board with meat free Monday’s? At least that would be one night a week where you could do the same for everyone. Pick dishes which are ‘naturally veggie’ rather than making veggie equivalents of traditionally meat based dishes. Macaroni cheese, cauliflower cheese, quiche, pizza, haloumi kebabs etc.

lexloofah · 05/02/2021 19:38

We have the same: veggie DD and committed carnivore DS. Made slightly easier that DD eats fish and seafood so a Pesci really.

So options for us are:

a) we all have the same: veggie chilli although no beans might be an issue but could swap for sweet corn, lentil Bolognese (Joe Wicks), scampi, fish or veg curry. Surprisingly everyone liked the first ever nut roast that I made last week with roasties and veg

b) I make two versions of the same thing which just means a bit more washing up and concentrating when it comes to adding ingredients to both pans and not mixing up the stirring spoons. so this week we had shepherds pie meat version and quorn version. Or it could be sausage and mash both versions or lasagne.

c) I substitute the protein with either veggie nuggets or sausages or a fishcake. When we have a roast DD likes cauli cheese instead of meat although the quorn roast went down well at Christmas.

d) DD has something entirely different to us (like last weekend when we had steak) which is probably something that I have saved a portion of in the freezer ie spag Bol, chilli, other pasta sauce or would happily have beans on toast or jacket.

BaffledMum123 · 05/02/2021 20:39

Thank you all, this is really helpful & encouraging. I'll definitely give the frittata a try.

OP posts:
KobaniDaughters · 06/02/2021 07:05

Risotto is always a good shout to feed an omnivore because they’re so often veggie anyway maybe your DS won’t miss the meat?

I feel your pain - I’m vegan, mostly everyone eats what I cook except DD who only eats about 10 things, half of which are animal products. We eat a lot of pasta pesto

user1493413286 · 06/02/2021 07:20

How about sausages and mash (veggie for one and meat for the other), pizza with toppings of their choice, roast dinner with a quorn substitute for DD, kebabs with chicken for DS and veggie for DD, pesto pasta with salmon added in at the end for DS, curry with one pan with chicken and one with quorn.
I’d probably aim for two entirely veggie nights; depending on their ages could you say at the weekends DD needs to cook her dinner one week while you have something meat based that isn’t easily made veggie and the other week DS needs to do the same to lighten the load a bit

Ginfordinner · 06/02/2021 07:34

Richmond meat free sausages are a game changer. When making anything with sausages just use them for the whole family.

BaffledMum123 · 23/02/2021 12:59

@Ginfordinner my daughter loves the richmond veggie sausages, thank you!!! She's not eating as much as I'd like, but she ate four. :)

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