OH doesn't like veg...

Mrs._Irwin

It's tricky to cook for us cheaply and healthily as DH only likes meat, potatoes, beans, bread, pizza etc.
It's very hard to bulk out mince and we can't have many meat-free evenings. I do baked potatoes with cheese and beans, any other ideas for meat-free meals that won't consist of just mashed potato?

McKneff

I am the same as your OH, i not only do not like veg (apart from poddy peas)
the literally make me retch, but i do find i can eat them in casseroles and small cut up carrots in mince, somehow it changes the texture and the taste.

Other than that if you really feel he needs his veg then liquidise some and put that in the mince or any gravy that you make.

skiTTish

Do what I have to do to get veg down oldest son
Warning ,do it when hubby is at work and keep it a secret!

I cook up a pan of assorted veg ,usually a lil swede ,carrot ,sometimes broccoli and parsnip in chicken stock ,when cooked I puree the veg with some of the stock and keep individual portions of this mix hidden in the freezer and everytime I cook spag bol ,shepherds pie ,chili ,sausage casserole ,chicken casserole etc ,I add a portion of the veg puree to it ,cant be tasted ,cant be found and left to one side of the plate ,still has most of the same vitamin content as fresh veg.:T

Patchwork_Quilt

Could you save stock from your meaty meals and use it in your veggie ones for a meaty taste?

The old fashioned way to make meat go further was to put it in a pie. To be healthier, you could put it in pasta, like canneloni or lasagne or under mashed potato.

CCP

Does your OH only like baked beans, or would any type of tinned beans be acceptable? I often add kidney/cannelini beans etc to meat casseroles and stews: they tend to take on the meaty flavour once everything's been cooked together, so it seems like you're getting more meat for your money (to me, anyway).

ubamother

omelettes and homemade oven chips?
macaroni cheese type bakes you can have them with salad
often veggy haters cope ok with onions and tomatoes cooked in a bolognese type way.

ragz_2

My OH tried that one...
Even claimed he was allergic to peas. But I still make him eat his veg, to set a good example to the kids. Can't have fully grown men being fussy gits!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Give him tons of plain boiled potatoes at every meal that isn't accompanied by loads of chunks of bread or plain boiled pasta/rice. He might whinge about the lack of huge lumps of big dead things on his plate, but he'll live to get used to less of everything.

Take a tip from the Orient - slice/chop meat finely - it cooks quickly and it looks like there's more to it - I could get a bloke who believed two whole chicken breasts was an acceptable portion size for one person, to feel equally full with half a chicken breast finely sliced, as long as there was something else on the plate to distract him. Make sauces and thicken them with cornflour.

A pizza from a french stick will also fill him up more - bit of tomato puree and cheese will be lots cheaper than the packaged variety.

Pippad

Like many others here I buy reduced veg from the Supermarket and Farm shops etc, cook them up and then liquidise them and add them to other dishes. So far my DH hasn't noticed and neither has my DD for that matter (I also add lentils in the same way!).

He too doesn't really like Veg (I blame his Mum for letting him get away with it!) but will eat it if it is in a sauce (like cheese sauce) or disguised as above. He also doesn't know that I add Swede or turnip to mash potato as when I do that I add a bit of tomato puree to make pink mash to appeal to my daughter!

Meat free meals that we have are poor man’s pasta (pasta with butter), omelette, breakfast (eggs, beans, toast, hash browns), soup, jacket potatoes, potato skins and beans, cheese and onion pie, chilli nachos, egg and baked bean pie, chilli beans, toasted sandwiches, plain ole beans on toast (sometimes with a poached egg!) and there are loads more! Look in the 50p meal thread that’s what I did several months ago!

Anyway as Jojo said chop up meat as it looks like there is more. My favourite is toad in the hole as with chopped up sausages and a bit of onion I can get away with as little as two or three sausages!

I also sat down and wrote up a list of what my DH would eat that I knew about and got him to suggest a few meals too and ended up with enough ideas that we could eat something different each night for three months (same basic ingredients) so I knew where I could smuggle the veg in!

Oh and I did start adding fruit to his breakfast and snacks though so he thought I had given up on the vegetables!

freezspirit

Have a similar problem with my dad, he can't stand mushrooms, he will fork them out of any meal. So now I completely diced them and put it in curries or in the meals sauce mix and it thickens the sauces. Or I will cook of diced onions, diced pepers and diced muchrooms with peas then mixed it in cooked rice.

A friends family won't eat vegetables so she will make a stock with pureed vegetables then use the liquid to cook the pasta in plus add it to the meat sauce. Yet none of the kid's know they are getting their 5 a day.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Oh yes, and if he likes sausages, buy big lumps of sausagemeat. You can add a few herbs and maybe grated apple, or any spices you want. You can get so many more meals out of one of those, especially if you flatten them out into little patties or use little balls of the stuff for toad in the hole - he probably won't notice if you've used a quarter of sausagemeat rather than 1lb of best bangers. If you bake them you could pop them on the top of mashed potato and he'll also think he has more than he's actually got, as they are all visible rather than hidden. If you are worried about health, steam them in a basket and all the fat will drip down into the water, then drop them into a dry hot nonstick pan to caramelise the edges.

With my lot, after initially starting with incredibly finely chopped or blitzed raw veggies as a starting point for red pasta sauces, I gradually introduced grated veggies, all generally obscured by tomato puree, dark french mustard and tinned tomatoes. Eventually, the DDs became accustomed to bits in their spag bog. Occasionally I chucked in peas and/or sweetcorn, etc. We went from the standard packs of mince to the little old lady size packs and still had plenty food for 4 (and a few treats for the cat)

Then, one day, I forgot to open the mince and left it in the fridge! Nobody noticed that the meat was absent. Except for the cat, anyway, but I swore her to secrecy with a slice of dried up ham. One meal then became two meals - bargain!

One slice of bacon and one small onion, chopped into pea sized bits, added to hot pasta with about 2 tblsp of creme fraiche or basics philly cheese and the same of parmesan, with or without 3tblsp of peas, is incredibly yummy and the strength of the bacon/parmesan flavour also suggests lots of meat.

If he's a big fan of savoury meaty tastes (umami?) you could add a couple of drops of tamari/soy into things. Paprika also suggests a smoky bacon taste.

And if he is still fussing over his food, just don't cook for him. He'll soon work out that he can't complain about the catering if he's doing nowt to help the situation.