Vegetarian parents, carnivorous kids....

[Catherinedeneuve]

Would love some advice on this from any kind people out there. Me and dh are long standing vegetarian (plus fish) eaters. Was always determined not to force views on the children when they were old enough to make a choice, and used to let them eat whatever at friends' houses, but wasn;t going to cook it.
That's kind of fallen by the wayside in recent times, and although I don;t (can't...literally, am sure I would poison them) cook meat as such, I do heat up cooked chicken and sausages for them. Eldest son has now become extremely difficult about wating any veg substitutes and younger won;t eat cheese. is getting very hard to find a non-fish protein we can all eat!

I have seriously considered eating chicken again (which I really don;t want to do - has been 25 years) because I'm worn out with trying to please anyone and reckon I could make casseroles and healthy stuff, but Dh wouldn;t do this, ever. Does anyone else have this situation and do you have any nice recipes that can be easily adapted, so chucking some quorn in one lot and chicken in another? This is harder than it sounds unless it is a sort of quorn cutlet/piece of chicken plus veg meal.
Would be so grateful for advice, especially if anyone else in this situation.
Thank you.
PS We eat together, so I try to avoid cooking different meals if poss...

Also wanted to add that we do eat fish, but there is only so much a person can take

so are you saying you want to make one basic meal and adapt it suit everyone?

if so, how precious are you about meat being in the same dish but on the far side of the pan kind of thing?

You put that so much better and more succintly

Re same dish....even if I went for that, DH really wouldn't, so would have to be separate unfortunately. Tricky one!

Catherine - I do this almost every day, not that the family are fussy eaters but because I am a strict vegetarian (for 35 years), Dh, Ds1 and Dd eat meat and the little one gets what I am having.

I find the easiest way to cater for everyone is to have a large pan of soup going (vegetarian stock) but split it into another pot with meat in.
Same as casseroles, stews. 2 pots.

Twice a week there will be a universal dish we can all eat eg macaroni & cheese or vegetarian chilli with rice.

A real godsend is a slow cooker which can be designated for either the carnivores or yourselves.

I also found that if the children made their own food (with help) they were more likely to eat it.

GO, thank you for that. Can you elaborate a tiny bit on what goes into your stew/casserole base? is it just onion/garlic/stock/carrot etc, and then you split some off and add in some chunks of cooked chicken?
I'm a bit of a thickie about cooking meat, I'm afraid.
Wish we could all have mac cheese, but literally makes the younger one start gagging, so I only make it when they're not there.
Was shopping just now and bought a special frying pan and proper meat sausages to cook from scratch. They've worn me into submission!

Basic stock would be onion, celery, turnip, parsnip, carrot and sweet potato. Fry the lot up slowly for an hour then use it as a base for soup, casseroles or stews.
I do mine in big batches and freeze the rest.

Basic Italian would be tomato, onion, garlic, basil, mushrooms which again can be frozen and used for eg vegetarian pasta dishes or lob in mince for the meat eaters.
It makes a good base for pizzas too.

I don't mind cooking meat at all, I just won't eat it. Sorry but I would not eat a vegetarian dish that had meat cooked in the same pan or to the side.
I know it is precious having separate pans, plates but c'est la vie.

No help at all, sorry.
I am just impressed that you are letting them choose and trying to accommodate it. I always got the impression that vegetarians imposed their views on their DCs.

GO, thank you, this is really helpful.
With your stock, there's water in there too? Sorry to keep asking, but am just getting it straight in my mind. Neither of them like mince, but was thinking with the Italian one, could put sausage or summat in there.
I think this is going to be my way forward!
They're a bit rubbish with veg too, but maybe I'll just say this is the deal - you eat this, you get meat! You don;t, I inflict my quorn on you AND force the veg

The Italian stock has a bit of sherry in it and a bit of water.

Soup is a good way of getting to eat veg especially if it is whizzed up into a puree almost.

Do they like mild curry , meatballs, Mexican stuff? I make hoofing great batches of all of these and freeze them so it is ok if they fancy a lamb curry and Ds2 and I are having pizza.
I'm not a mega organised person but the cook/freeze/ separate pots system works well.

Nah, they're rubbish with that stuff. Dh makes brilliant veg chilli, but they won;t eat it. Don;t like mincey anything.
They like chickpeas and will eat Annabel Karmel's nice veggie burgers. Youngest loves veggie sausages and likes quorn too, but eldest is major carnivore now.
Don;t think I could cook lamb or anything like that. Would probably have to stick with poultry, i think, and sausages. Suppose could bear to cook bacon..
Thank you very much for your help.

piscesmoon we are veggie, have quite a few veggie friends and I don't know any who differ from op's, i.e. feed 'em the same to begin with then let 'em choose when they want to maybe you only know very militant veggies....?

No, I don;t know anyone like that either. Certainly not anyone with a child older than about two anyway.

I'm a veggie with a veggie dd1 and carnivorous dp and dd2. The easiest meals to adapt into one meat and one vege are:

Stir fries - just fry up a load of vege then split it off into two pans, one with tofu or cashew nuts and one with chicken or whatever.

Tajines - make a big vege and chickpea tagine, then the meat eaters can have some cooked chicken or lamb added later.

Sausage casserole: I make a generic sauce with passata, mustard, honey, paprika, lentils, carrots and onions. Then add veggie sausages or meat as desired.

Curries are easy to split too.

Janite, your recipes sound lovely...

Trouble is, I have scarred them for life with my stir fries. They recoil in horror at the very name now.

What exactly is a tagine, she says ignorantly?
Is your saus casserole made up or is there a recipe somewhere? Sounds lovely.

We vary from strict veggie to veggie+occasional organic meat and fish in our family.

The dds, irritatingly, are also not particularly keen on all the spicy vegetarian classics - curries, chillis, etc.

I find quorn pretty useful, I know not every veggie is keen on it but it all 3 dds (and DP) eat it enthusiastically (sausages, burgers, mince and "chicken pieces" and it makes life easy. Whereas I have only limited success with the tofu/lentil options. Some eat it some don't.

My fussiest dd is totally veggie, she's 7, and I do insist she eats protein forms that aren't cheese or dairy (she loves cheese). We have settled on baked beans, nuts, eggs, dairy and quorn as her protein options.

Saus casserole recipe is made up. I like it with the veggie hotdog sausages, which add to the smokiness of the paprika. Usually I use tinned green lentils for laziness' sake.

Tajine = Morroccan casserole. I don't generally use a recipe but I have a lovely Madhur Jaffrey one whih I can probably dig out. It's dead easy - you just layer a load of vege in a big pyrex dish and cover them with spices, garlic and tomato puree and stock. Cover with foil and cook for about an hour so the veggies go lovely and soft and sort of melt into the liquid.

Fennel,
I think quorn rocks, personally, but ds1 has decided it is the devil's work in recent times. Mine aren;t keen in spicy stuff either, which is very annoying. They used to eat dhal with re lentils, but haven;t tried green..
janeite, your recipes are so nice, you wouldn't mind just popping over a few times a week....???
If you can remember the name of the Madhur Jaffrey one, that would be brilliant and I'll just google it.
Thanks everyone for your comments.

www.recipezaar.com/Moroccan-Tagine-of-Vegetables-139594

This is the tajine recipe, although it seems to have become American in that it has cilantro instead of coriander etc. I leave out the courgettes (or zucchini!) as we don't like them and put extra potatoes in instead. I mix a bit of tomato puree and some extra spices into the water before pouring it over and I don't measure the spices in the layers, just mix them all together at the start and then sprinkle randomly.

"I always got the impression that vegetarians imposed their views on their DCs."

Course they do Pisces. As do you on yours, I presume, unless you are one of those carnivores who feeds their kids meat but explains the moral and environmental implications of doing so?

Im sure you impose your views upon them in other areas too.

"I always got the impression that vegetarians imposed their views on their DCs."

Course they do Pisces. As do you on yours, I presume, unless you are one of those carnivores who feeds their kids meat but explains the moral and environmental implications of doing so?

Im sure you impose your views upon them in other areas too.

I do a lot of vegetarian cooking, the Cranks cookbook and Rose Elliot are among my favourites-I have told my DCs they are welcome to be complete vegetarians but they haven't taken me up on it.
I just find it strange with vegetarians that they are very unbending, so it was like a breath of fresh air to get OP. If my vegan brother and SIL visit us I always do a vegan meal and am quite happy to-but if we go to them we always get a vegan meal and the chances of my DCs getting a drink of milk is nil!
I try not to impose my views on my DCs, but I don't expect I always succeed! I am always having a go at people on here who 'tell' their DCs what they should think.

I (kind of) feel your pain - DH is veggie and I am not and I don't want to cook two meals (or eat separately). I dread what's going to happen when DD and any other DCs grow up ...

Can you do bacon? It is usually enough to give a meal a nice meaty kick and improves almost anything You just need to cut into pieces with kitchen scissors then fry until golden at the edges.

Stuffed peppers - cut peppers in half and remove seeds. Cut up enough tomatoes into big chunks to fill pepper halves. Put a big handful of fresh basil, a couple of cloves of peeled garlic, a tsp or so of capers, salt and pepper and a big glug of olive oil into a handheld blitzer thing and blitz into a puree. Pour over tomatoes in peppers. Roast until browned on the edges and serve with salad/couscous/bread. Scatter with fried bacon pieces for omnivores.

Lentil pasta sauce (can make loads then freeze) - Cook med chopped onion and clove chopped garlic in oil for five minutes until onion is soft. Add 1 1/2 cups brown lentils, whole dried chili, salt and pepper, and 900 ml water. Simmer 30 minutes. Add 2 tsp stock powder, 1/4 tsp dried basil, 1/4 tsp dried oregano, can chopped tomatoes, 140g tomato paste, and vinegar (can't remember what I used - prob balsamic). Simmer for an hour. Add cooked pasta, serve veggies, stir in fried bacon pieces, serve omnivores.

I'm planning on making this for a bunch of veggies following a winter day walk on Christmas Eve, with a couple of cooked sausages on the side for the omnis.

Make a couple of basic tomato sauces: chop up load of onion, carrot and celery and divide between two big pans. Cook for a few min until soft. To one pan add chopped root ginger, turmeric, cumin, maybe some garam marsala, stir and cook for another minute. To other pan add chopped garlic, maybe some fresh herbs and a couple of bay leaves and cook for a minute. To both add a stack of tomatoes (fresh/canned/creamed etc) and good squirt of tomato puree, maybe a glug of red wine and some balsamic vinegar to the one with herbs in. Simmer away for a bit then blitz (or leave chunky if you prefer). Sorry if I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here, but bear with me ... Make loads and freeze in portions.

The one with spices in I generally just heat up and add a tin of pulses and whatever veg we have in eg tonight we had it with chickpeas, petit pois and broccoli on brown rice; also thought that chickpea, spinach and potato (cubed, cooked and fried) would be good too. Or paneer. Anyway, could probably just chuck in some cooked chicken too for the omnis and let it heat through.

Meditarranean-style herby sauce:

• shove in some veg and/or cooked meat (chicken/cooked sliced sausage/bacon pieces) and serve with pasta
• mix in can of kidney beans, chopped mushrooms and cooked chicken for the omnis, roll in tortillas or pancakes and bake
• add veg stock and whichever veg/pulses you have to hand and serve as a chunky soup; for omnis stick in some bacon/sliced sausage/cooked chicken (or poach raw chicken in pieces in the soup for more chickeny flavour)

Think that's all I can think of for the moment - generally these days I eat veggie too or we have the veg and stuff out of the freezer (sausages for me/quorn for him etc) option. Hope that's some use and not just all really obvious stuff you've done already.

PS I'm not a fan of macaroni cheese either but did like this (and guess what - it's even better with bacon scattered over it! )

Risotto - then cook some sausages/bacon/chicken pieces in a separate pan and serve along with it for the omnivores?
Potato-gratin type things - or indeed jacket potatoes, because you can do one pan of veggie-chilli or quorn-and-tomato-mix and one pan of meat-based mix to top them with...