What do you cook to please both the vegan and non-vegan?!
What do you cook to please both the vegan and non-vegan?
What kinds of meals can you prepare in a dual household without having to cook two meals?
Answers:
One of my favorite things to make are risotto friters, you can make them vegan and no one is complaining. All you do is make a batch of risotto with onions, garlic, veg stock (homemade of course) and some peas to make a vegan pea risotto. Then cool them and form them into patties, coat them in some panko bread crumbs, and serve them with a spicy tomato sauce, and grilled portabella. Everyone is happy, its filling, full of flavor, and elegant.
Shepherd's pie with quorn mince (don't put milk in the mash though!) it tastes really nice and if you don't tell the non-vegans that it isn't meat then they probably won't even notice!
I usually make a vegetarian pasta dish (spaghetti, veggie lasagna, etc.) and then grill some chicken for the meat-eaters to have with their pasta.
Try cooking with veggies that are organic such as bell peppers, brussel sprouts, and eggplant. Or you could use tofu as an alternative. Search on Vegetarian based websites for great recipes.
The easiest thing I have found is to prepare one main dish as vegetarian or vegan and have some meat prepared on the side that can be added to individual servings at the end. Some things that work good are vegetables soups, veggie and noodle casseroles, bean and veggie chili, spaghetti or other veggie based pasta sauces. There's alot of other dishes that can work for this.
Another thing I do quite a bit is have a make your own burrito/fajita type dinner. I'm not sure if you have kids but mine love making all their own choices. I just prep all the fillings- sauted onions and peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, rice, refried beans, corn salsa, olives, whatever. Then let them pick and choose. This is a meal where I don't prepare any meat anymore. Fantastic Foods makes a taco filling that so good even my carniverous family loves it!
You can do the same type of thing with make your own pizzas. I use english muffins for the base, tons of topping options, sauce, and cheeses (rice cheese for me, conventional for the family) They bake in about 10 minutes and everyone gets just what they want.
Hope this helps!
I don't patronize meat-eaters... they eat what the rest of us eat or they leave...
As for veggies and vegans ... I'm not a cooker, so I just order some cucumber and sesame seed sushi and some tofu sushi! Little sandwiches with Toffuti Cracked- Peppercorn Soy slices and mustard are awesome, too...
In my experience, though - meat eaters don't like tofu, so if you're cooking for omnivores, avoid tofu - they'll just complain about how it doesn't taste like meat...
bell peppers stuffed with rice and roasted in veggie stock are yummy (I add all sorts of seasonings, onions, celery, peppers, etc to the rice. Zuchini stuffed with quinoa pilaf, mediteranian curried cous cous, stir fry rice, veggie kebabs on the grill (marinate lightly steamed new potatoes, raw mushrooms, pearl onions, zuchini and yellow squash in garlic, herbs, and olive oil-thread on wooden skewers and grill or broil. Pasta with olive oil, garlic and lemon is nice. pupusas with beans and salsa, bean tacos or burittos with homemade taco sauce, stuffed, twice baked potato (stuff with potatoes mashed with veggie broth and mushrooms) mochi with a sunflower seed pate, sunflower garden burgers, bean and potatoe patties, baked asparagus, rice, sprouts, and lettuce in a tortilla wrap, too much to mention really
A nice fruit salad for starters
Then maybe a nice dish of portabello mushrooms with seasonal veggies.
They do have some "burgers" that are vegan (not just vegetarian) that often go over well with non-veg too.