vegetarian lunch for adults and teens - ideas please

[janeite]

Cooking lunch for 3 adults and three teenagers in a few days. Needs to be veggie. One doesn't like eggs, none of the teenagers like mushrooms and I don't like tinned tomatoes. Any ideas please?

Last time I did tagine and cous cous, so not that and my usual staple of caramelised onion quiche is out, as one adult doesn't like eggs.

Hoping somebody can inspire me!

Some kind of pasta dish?
Stuffed peppers?
Rissotto?
Vegetable rice gratin kind of thing?
Jacket potatoes?
Lots of salads like potato, pasta, cous cous and some bread and stuff?

fajitas?
risotto?
Thai curry?

Oops x-post

What is a vegetable rice gratin thing?

Risotto could be good - and there is lots of lovely asparagus around now.

macaroni cheese?

Something cheese based always goes down well (speaking as a veggie)

Agh - forgot to say that dd1 is not fond of cheese.

oh, tricky......

Agree with the variety of salads idea with jacket potatoes- people could pitch in and have what they want then so you could include egg/cheese dishes etc

Could be good - I suppose I could do jacket potatoes, veggie chilli and salads maybe?

Any more ideas please?

loads of snacky bits - our entire meals now consist of that and will throughout summer

at the moment we have ciabatta rolls, new potato salad, cous cous, mixed greek salad, falafels, loads of dips, chopped up veg out on the table.

Add in some spicy beanburgers and you're good to go.

Snacky bits is how we eat most of the time too! I think I'd prefer to do an actual cooked meal though, which is why quiche is always so good. It feels like you've made an effort and then you just do picky stuff to go with it.

What could I do with a pan of garlic roasted potatoes and some salad that isn't a quiche?

I like the falafel idea- plus a yogurt or tomato based sauce/dip?

A frittata instead of quiche (what people call a spanish omelette) - you basically cook it in a large frying pan and slide it out onto the plate - looks like a giant fancy omelette - very scrummy

Ratatouille with a crusty bread;
Spinach quiche with green salad;
Tortilla de Patata (Spanich omelette with potatoes) and Gazpacho;

Oopsie about quiche re:eggs...

I love fritatta but no good for egg-hating friend.

Ratatouille could work.

Thanks.

Dhal and rice/naan bread

Stir fry with marinated tofu and noodles

Shepherdess pie using either quorn or puy lentils

Veggie sausage and mash

Servalan - all sound lovely but I am hoping for sunshine, so maybe something lighter. Thank you though.

Whilst we're here though, what dhal recipe do you recommend?

I make dhal by slicing a large onion and frying it in corn oil until golden. I then add 3 or 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped, a tsp (or so) of the following: ginger, ground cumin, turmeric and paprika. I cook for a further minute before adding red lentils (though a mix of red and green can be nice too). Not sure what the weight of the lentils would be - 8oz maybe. I stir it all in together, add vegetable stock to cover lentils well (about twice the volume of the lentils), speed boil for 10 minutes, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes (adding more liquid if required).

It can simmer for much longer if you want the flavours to mingle more, but I find it's still pretty tasty with just the minimum cooking time.

I chuck in a handful of fresh coriander before serving.

Hope you find something you like. Unfortunately my hot weather dishes all seem to involve either eggs, cheese or tinned tomatos!!

btw, that amount would probably feed 4 in this house.

Thank you both. I love dhal!

We seem to be surviving almost entirely on asparagus and corn on the cob at the moment - yum.

Sushi no good, I'm afraid. Tis a) fish and b) I don't like it!

Am thinking of doing:

• baked camembert with bread, radishes, celery etc (and dd1 can have hoummus)
• salads, baked garlic potatoes and erm - something: maybe ratatouille, maybe stuffed peppers, maybe some sort of puff pastry tart with asparagus
• trifle and/or chocolate cake

What do you think?

Yes to garlic cloves - for all of us not just the adults!

Ok re the sushi - but I am still frightened of it...

I usually make a ton of ratatouille and use leftovers for ratatouille tart( with puff pastry), top it with rounds of goat cheese (which is a no no for your friend, sadly). A substantial meal with nice green salad and light red or rose though.

That sounds good - thank you. Friend would be fine; it's dd who's the fussy one re: cheese! She does tolerate parmesan without TOO much complaint though, so I could maybe do a version with that?