3 Diffrent meals for a family of three driving me mad + costs more money!!

Croc_Mad

veggie for nine years. I've started eating meat again in the past week (only a little chicken; doctor's orders) but am having really bad stomach symptoms, so you need to be careful.

If you get the supermarket own-brand rehydrateable mince it's usually dairy-free, cheap and a lot of the time, people can't tell it from real meat. You must be good just to cook meat for him, I wouldn't bother

seven-day-weekend

My mum was a vegetarian from when she was a little girl until she died in her 90s, when I was young she just used to cook all the veggies and then add cheese or vege sausage to hers and meat to ours.

Although we didn't have pasta, (a bit 'foreign' in the 50s and 60s!) I'm sure she would have done the same for that.

A friend of mine who is vege does the same. For example, last time we went to dinner she did stuffed peppers and had ratatouille and cheese in hers and ratatouille and mince for everyone else.

When we invited her to a barbecue we just got some quorn burgers for her abd sone vege sausage (and made sure we only used 'her' side of the barbecue for her food)..

For all of you, I like Linda McCartney products (which I believe are made from soya), although they can be quite expensive, so only would use then occasionally.

1sttimer_2

My OH is a veggie, and me a meat eater with 2 daughters same as each. Fortunately we all love pasta and I use quorn mince for most 'meat' type dishes. I also do quite a few soups/stews with we can all eat.

If daughter or I want meat, we have it on side with veggies as for everyone.

Not sure about baby though as it's a long time since mine were babies but I think the bulk cooking/freezing is a great idea.

Good Luck

Sus1e

Hubby is Veggie, I'm not.

One of our favourite meals is Roasted Veg and Couscous. He has it with Falafel or veggie burger, I have chicken.

We use Realeat mince instead of Quorn (tastes better) and Cauldron Sausages (esp the lincoln/cumberland ones) - I doubt your hubby would be able to tell the difference in chilli/lasange/casserole etc.

Thinking about it, I have chicken/fish about twice a week (with the same veg as Hubby is having). The rest of the time I am a happy non-meat eater.

HTH

claireandella

I've been veggie for nearly 18 years, partner is about as carniverous as you can get. Our DD is almost 10 months and i haven't given her any meat yet as I want to feed her an organic diet and don't want her to eat any anti-biotics, steroids etc for at least the first year. my partner tends to buy whole pigs/cows/sheep (usually organic) locally so that he knows the quality and has it butchered to his requirements (much, much cheaper and you know exactly what you're getting) but I'm still not convinced that this is best for DD. We do keep chickens so she can have free-range, organic egg occasionally but I don't want to overdo it.
I tend to cook veg and potatoes for all of us and then add chops/joint etc for partner, veggie pie/grill/whatever for myself and cheese/lentils/bit of my veggie thing for DD. I do worry that she's not getting enough protein but I've taken to adding a handful of seeds, aduki beans or lentils to just about everything I cook from scratch so this should help. My partner also loves my veggie curry, spag bol and lasagne better than the meat version and so does DD so these have been featuring heavily of late and most do a couple of nights/can be frozen so cut down on time.
We use a lot of cheese which is difficult if your baby is milk intolerant. Could you stay veggie and have the same as baby but buy the soya version of things like spread and cheese and maybe some vegan frozen things from Holland and Barrett (not horrendously expensive if bought on offer)?

Jo_R_2

I have to say I would never compromise my dietary habits for my OH - it's just something I feel so strongly about. Both our DDs are vegetarian - (ex) OH didn't like the idea at first when I suggested it with DD1 but when I explained my concerns about her eating meat and the benefits to her, he was all for it and never even wavered when it came to weaning DD2.

I never really have cooked separate meals for us all when we eat together. I was vegan for years then turned back to being veggie when pg, but really this just means eating yogurts, and some sweeties with milk/lactose/whey etc in them, and a bit of cheese. I take it when you say DD is milk intolerant you mean she's lactose intolerant, not allergic to milk? There's LOADS of stuff I make that doesn't have any lactose or milk in (vegan stuff) that (ex) OH was happy to eat. Mind you he was a special case - he really was a vegan meat-eater, he put me to shame with his tofu and hummus consumption!

If you can get through the two adults meal problem then you can sort DD easily. How open is DH to eating veggie? How about adapting meals so you are eating the same essentially but substituting vegemince or the like for real mince, like in pasta and sauce, veggie burgers (we do home made) and meat bugrers and buns, with salad and nibbles? Sunday dinner-style meals which is dead easy because you just have all the same veggies and accompaniments (I skipped yorkies), then change yr main part (meat pie/roast and veggie pie/plait/etc) and gravy of yr choice. Etc.

Am weaning DD2 and she has whatever we're having, but as finger food (I posted about htis on another post recently.) It's called baby-led weaning so DD2 sits there nibbling florets of broccoli, cauliflower, carrot sticks or slices, potato wedges and so on. Really easy. You can get non-dairy milks and margarines (I find that if I use unsweetend soya milk in lasagne, for example, you can't tell the difference between it and cow's milk.)

HTH a little!