Family recipes for a tricky set of requirements

[spriots]

We are trying to eat more family meals together but have a tricky combination of dietary issues (allergies and strong preferences) and it's hard to find meals we can all eat.

Things one or more of us can't eat:

Meat (except fish/seafood)
Eggs
Beans - except baked beans
Lentils
Too much spice

At the moment, we do:

Fish and rice/vegetables
Pasta - with meat sauce for some and veggie sauce for others
Pizza
Fish tacos

Any ideas for other things we can add to the rotation?

Fish pie, I like the Jamie Oliver recipe.
Prawn Risotto
Vegetarian sausage casserole with veg and baked beans in served with crusty bread
Jacket potatoes with tuna and sweetcorn or tuna and cheese.
Frittata.
Quiche and salad
Home made Fish and chips - baked potato wedges and Fish in breadcrumbs

What about chickpeas? Falafels, and salad in flatbread or pittas with griddled corn on the cob goes down well at our house.

@WonderingWanda thanks!

A couple of great ideas there (some do have egg in though - can't do a frittata or quiche with the egg allergy)

The kids really like jacket potatoes actually but had slightly forgotten about them

Veggie lesagne
Fish fingers with homemade potato wedge chips
Jacket potato
Veggie spag bol
Mac and cheese
Mezze board, nice bread and dips, feta, tomatos, hummous, stuffed vine leaves, olives etc

Oops, I missed the egg allergy, sorry.

Stir-frys of various descriptions.
Lots of vegetables plus protein.
And tons of herbs - parsley, basil, cilantro/fresh coriander, dill.
Lemon or lime juice, ginger and/or garlic to lift it to a different level.
Served with rice, noodles or quinoa.

Puff pastry tarts? Loads of different toppings ideas online.

Soups with various breads are another popular one here.

Seafood paella
Prawn Stirfry, just use lots of garlic, oil and soysauce.
Sushi - easy enough once you have prepped the rice.
Prawn cocktail
Prawn summer rolls with satay sauce. Again easy enough once you have the rice outer shell soaking.

Fondue
Crudits and dips
Whole baked canenbert with dipping bread and Chutney
Toasted cheese sandwiches with whatever filling, chtney, ham, onions etc.
Quesadilla with salsa, cheese abd avocado. Meat filling for the meat eaters.

Baked field mushrooms with caramelised onion and goats cheese.
Fried garlic mushrooms
Stuffed peppers/tomatos
Cheesey baked potato skins
Prawn mornay
Vegetable gratin

Garlic flatbread, add cheese and tomato for veggie, plus meat for another.
Creamy baked salmon. (Garlic, butter, cream and lemon sauce)

Veggie/halloumi fajitas
cheese, onion and potato pie
mild veggie biriyani
Aubergine parmigiana
mushroom stroganoff
Courgette and lemon risotto (make arancini the next day)
tomato and mozzarella risotto
paneer korma

Tuna pasta bake
Homemade fish cakes - play ground with combinations, we really like tuna with sweet potato, spring onion and chilli but paprika would work. Or prawn and salmon with ginger, lemongrass and lime. Just use vegan mayo instead of egg before dipping in breadcrumbs. If using sweet potato instead of white add a little flour so it isn't so wet.
For a really quick meal, cook cod fillets in an oven proof dish, a couple of minutes before they're done dollop on some mango chutney and put them under the grill. Serve with rice and veg.
Linguini with garlic, prawns, cherry tomato and parsley.
Haloumi and veg kebabs with pita and salad.
Although a little more expensive tuna steaks with a sesame crust, stir fried veg and rice noodles is delicious.

Sticky salmon, served over stir-fried veg and noodles
Prawn stir fry
Baked Greek fish - roast baby potatoes for half an hour or so with seasoning, olive oil, paprika and oregano, stir in some peppers, olives, sliced tomatoes and give them ten mins, then add fish fillets on top drizzled with oil for another 10 - 12 mins.
Sausage, pepper and potato traybake - same method as above, but do one tray with veggie sausages, one tray with meat.
Build your own tacos - can use fish goujons, chicken strips, veg, guacamole etc.

We have a range of dietary issues (although different to yours) and batch cooking is the thing that helped me most.

Every few days I cook a big batch of something that at least one of us can eat and freeze it in portions.

Two or three days a week we have a freezer meal so we each get one of our frozen meals. I try to theme them a bit and add sides we can all eat if possible. Eg tonight we all had Chinese style meals I’d prepped and frozen, then there were fortune cookies and broccoli with garlic, which we will all eat.

@AbacusAvocado I intellectually agree that's probably the way forward but (I realise this is my issue) I grew up in a culture that cooks fresh every day and I just really don't like eating defrosted stuff. I will do it once in a while but I just prefer freshly cooked food. I am ok with reheating something from the fridge though so I could definitely do a bit more of that.

At the moment, I basically cook one thing for the kids and one thing for us. (This helps with the dietary requirements which are mostly me and one of the children). This is mostly fine but there's a lot of washing up and it's complicated to meal plan for. Plus I would just like to have more communal meals, you know?

Chunks of pumpkin parboiled. Slice and layer in a casserole like lasagne with Italian tomato sauce between the layers. Crumble in Greek feta for a salt hit. Breadcrumbs and cheese on top and into the oven for half an hour.

Keeps really well. Very filling.

@spriots - totally understand, on a fundamental level I’d like us all to be eating the same meal, it feels like a way families and groups connect and share.

We do manage it sometimes if I cook tapas style, but obviously that’s loads of cooking.

I do get it, but you're going to have to let something go.

Either your life continues to be a stressy faff
Or you don't all eat the same thing
Or you eat/adapt some batch-cooked stuff from the freezer.

It's like the time/cost/quality triangle we used to talk about in work: you can have it cheap and fast, but you can't have it good and cheap and fast. You can have it good and fast but you can't have it cheap, good, fast etc etc.

I think optimally I would like a bit of a mix - 6-8 meals on rotation we can all eat that we can have 2-3 times a week. And then the rest of the week we can carry on doing separate meals - roughly the way we work that is that either the adults or the kids get something "quick", sometimes a batch cooked sauce with pasta or similar. For myself I would honestly rather have something quick and fresh (like an omelette - I am not the one with the egg allergy!) than a defrosted meal

Veggie fajitas/enchiladas/tacos/quesadillas
Risotto
Veggie cottage pie
Salmon en croute
Falafel/halloumi gyros

Defrosted is totally fine IMO IF it’s the right kind of food. So casseroles, curries, pasta sauces and soup freeze perfectly- anything that’s been slow cooked already. Other stuff not so much. But there are other shortcuts eg the frozen chopped onions are a lifesaver.

For your family and if you prefer to cook fresh I would suggest:

SE Asian recipes (noodle soups, stir fries) just leave out the chilli and use nuts/prawns as protein
Puff pastry tarts - usually some combo of veg & cheese eg leek & goats cheese or tomato & ricotta & parmesan or mushroom & taleggio
Soup with bread - root veg ones are filling, or minestrone without the beans
Quesadillas- meat filling for meat eaters and bean filling for bean eaters
Halloumi with roasted Med veg and cous cous
Falafel (if chickpeas are ok) with pitas yoghurt and salad
Aubergine parmigiana (if you can get your kids to eat aubergine, I can’t)

Oh yes risotto of course!

I had this yesterday - it was delicious - thank you for the suggestion!

@spriots I am very pleased you enjoyed it.