Roast Vegetables in Pita

School started, and looking for a little convenience, I bought a tray of those pre-cut roasting vegetables in the produce department for the first time.

What's cool: when you toss them in a little olive oil, they completely loose that exposed-to-air look. I tossed in some fresh thyme and basil I had leftover, and salt and pepper. Into the oven for 30 minutes at 450F, more than enough time to have them well cooked.

Serve with pita bread, and a little whole milk yogurt for those who want some creaminess and more sense of the Greek. I offered cubed meat leftovers to add for the insistently non-vegetarian.

Okay, and what was in the tray of pre-cut vegetables? Carrots, green beans, zucchini, summer squash, onion, yam. I thought I would be sad I didn't have mushrooms, but really, I didn't miss them.

Asparagus Dudes

Tonight's quick dinner was penne pasta with asparagus and cherry tomatoes in an alfredo-type sauce.  We had honeydew as a side.  It was my riff on the Bertollini frozen pasta dinner.

First, I boiled penne pasta in a separate pot.

I melted butter in a saute pan, added asparagus cut in 2 inch pieces, threw in some shredded parmesan, added cream.  When it was getting warm and melty, I added the pasta and the cherry tomatoes and mixed that in.

For some reason, I have it in my head that asparagus must always been steamed.  But this saute method worked well, the asparagus came out great.

I cut the cherry tomatoes in half.  I don't like my food to explode when I bite into it.

Anyway was delicious--why not with all that cream.  My son was bored though, and put the asparagus pieces into the penne pasta to make Asparagus Dudes.

This could be a split-meal for part-vegetarian families by serving slices of cooked chicken breast separately, for the meat-eaters to mix in on their plates.  My husband had to be away from us for dinner tonight, so only the youngest child wanted any meat.

Add the bouillon at the table

My own copy

The kids are in finals, so of course half the kids, and me, are coming down with a cold.  An excellent occasion to try at least the idea of Mark Bittman's Clean-Out-the-Fridge Vegetable Soup.  My soup was comparatively limited by what I had in the fridge to clean out, and I wasn't about to go out in the rain in my mildly sick and tired state to pretend I ever had on hand as wide a range of vegetables as Bittman.

Wannabe Mirepoix: leeks, carrots, mushroom.

Mine was a leek-carrot-mushroom-tomato-potato-spinach soup.  No pistou.  But served with cheese sandwich or hamburgers to take the pressure off.

I added my bouillon paste right into my soup bowl!

I serve a vegetarian soup at more than half our dinners in the winter, but tonight I was impatient with the thought of another vegetable bouillon broth.  So I did a crazy thing--I cooked the vegetables in water, and served a choice of vegetable or turkey Better than Bouillon soup base paste at the table.  I know this doesn't allow the vegetables to season in the broth while cooking, but it was worth it to me to serve vegetables in turkey broth to those who wanted it, without having to divide the soup into two pots so the vegetarian version would be available to those who require it.

(pescatarian) Eel for Thanksgiving

My vegetarian daughter loves Thanksgiving, and has put down my vague guilty suggestions that I should make some main dish for her, alternate to the Turkey.  She loves the vegetable sides, and declares herself more than delighted just to have all those vegetarian versions of the carb ones (mushroom gravy, stuffing that baked in the oven with vegetable broth, mashed potatoes without broth, etc.)

This year, early in the November, I heard a radio spot about the eel industry, how it is mostly processed, cooked, and vaccum-wrapped in China, even if you buy it in a restaurant here.  And, I heard one of the inevitable "what our Pilgrim ancestors really ate," which mentioned the importance of eel.

Eel.  My daughter loves unagi, and now I'd learned that I wouldn't be expected to prepare it, just warm it up from frozen.  All it took was a quick trip to my local Ranch 99 Asian market to get the prepared frozen eel.   It became the "dare" food on the Thanksgiving table, and lots of people, including the kids gave it a try.

Family Salad Nicoise

I'd only had Salad Nicoise at a restaurant, so it never occurred to me to make a family version. Instead of composing each plate, you just compose one platter or casserole dish for everyone. In our family, this works because it lets one person take more potato, while the next person skips the spuds, another person skips tomatoes, and I require everyone to take certain number of green beans.

I like the sensible Nicoise Salad recipe directions at Simply Recipes, which tell me what to do while the potatoes are boiling so the salad comes together quickly, and how to lay out salad for a group beautifully.

In general terms, Nicoise Salad is:
Lettuce
warm boiled small potatoes
warm cooked green beans
hard boiled egg
tomato
thin small slices red onion (but I use the scallions I have on hand.)
capers (sometimes we forget)
oil-cured olives (but we substitute familiar canned ones)
tuna (canned is fine--we skip the tuna sometimes and up the eggs.)
And all dressed with vinaigrette.

It's really fun with french bread and Orangina.  Viva la Faux France.

Umami Mommy

We're a part vegetarian family, but I will admit to looking for ways to sell the meat-eaters on more vegetarian dishes. It's not that I really care who's eating what, having no strong philosophical underpinning to my personal vegetarianism. It's just that I find it tedious making double dinners many meals a week.

So, here's what helps sell a vegetarian dish to a meat-eating family. Umami. (oo-ma-me). Many of us have heard of bitter, sour, sweet, and salty as tastes our tongues can detect, but a fifth taste vector has been proposed, coyly named umami. I've heard the umami flavor described as a meaty or savory flavor. It's an aspect of the taste of meat, but it's also an aspect of the taste of mushrooms, soy sauce, miso soup, parmesan cheese, and nori. Even in (ugh) MSG. I've read that it's in the taste of tomato too, and even in potatoes, carrots, and asparagus. Ketchup, vegemite, and worcestershire sauce are said to have that umami kick.

I'm convinced that umami is the reason I can serve mushroom ravioli and everyone in the family will be pleased.

Do your family's favorite vegetarian dishes coincidentally feature that umami taste?

more on umami: SF Gate article on Umami from year 2000; umami skepticism on page 2 of 4.

A lazy week of split-meals

Not that I recommend living on tacos, burgers, and pizza, which is what we ate this week.

Monday:
Taco Bar (shells, beans, cheese, lettuce, taco-seasoned meat, taco sauce),
homemade applesauce,
butternut squash soup.
Tuesday:
reheated pizza from the weekend (in the frying pan on the stove),
leftover butternut squash soup,
caesar salad from bag.
Wednesday:
Thai vegetarian coconut curry containing baked potato and blue lake green beans,
pineapple,
"asian" bagged salad with dried cherries, shredded carrot, cabbage, lettuce, won-ton strips, and ginger-sesame dressing,
baked chicken thighs on the side deboned and chopped for those who'd like to add it as condiment to curry,
peanuts on the side, for those who'd like to add it to curry.
Thursday:
choice of Sloppy Joe, or Portabella Garden Burger. Orders taken 30 minutes before dinner.
Watermelon,
carrot sticks and olives,
salt-and-pepper chips,
store-bought egg-potato salad.
Friday: Pizza as per contract with 9-year-old.

Habits to break

"I am SO tempted to eat one of those sausages. If I ever quit being a vegetarian, that is the first thing I'm going to eat." and she has said that about something before--but was it about Kielbasa?  Honestly, I don't have much brain space for keeping track of what anyone's theoretically likes anymore.  I'm just glad dinner will finally start, once my son finishes washing his hands.

"Have some if you like," I say.  "You could eat meat again, or if you just have some today.  Doesn't matter."

We eat in the kitchen, and my son is washing his hands at the sink, so everyone hears this.  He's close enough to done that we're waiting for him before we start eating. He loves to give this vegetarian sister a hard time.  Every other week he'll try and sneak meat onto her plate, or wave his meat-laden fork in her face, or tell her how delicious it is.   I suspect mostly he's dumbfounded by her, since he would eat only meat and bread if I'd let him.  Heck, he may think she's the reason vegetables are served, the way I have a side of something in every meal for him.

They smell SO good... and then she pops one of those sausages into her mouth.

Immediately, the other children begin crying foul. "Not enough sausages to go around," they claim. "Don't waste the sausage on the vegetarian.  She has her own food!"  Though when I produce the heart-shaped poached eggs, the first grade princess immediately asks for one.  Then I start counting out the kielbasa slices among the family members.

"Do you want more?"  I ask my vegetarian daughter.

"Nah.  I just wanted the one."

And so we settle as usual to dinner.   A little what-did-you-do-today, a little hey-she-poked-me, and all that good family stuff.

I believe this is the first time the vegetarian has eaten meat in four years, and I am curious about the coming months.  Not so much if the vegetarian will eat meat again, but if her break has broken her brother's hang-up with her diet.

Because family dinner is an ongoing dynamic, no matter what you eat.

This week in Split Meals

Monday:
Stuffing (actually, I guess it's called dressing when it's cooked in a dish?)
(apples, onion, celery, raisins, torn bread, vegetarian boullion from Knorr cube. This is my one make-an-effort dish this week.)
--thanks kits54 for suggesting the Knorr.
Top with Poached egg for vegetarian tonight; with Kielbasa, top or to the side, if you're not.
Green Salad

Strange Dessert: Twinkie-Hot Dog, as seen in Weird Al's UHF movie.
Twinkie without hotdog for the vegetarian and the sane.


Tuesday:
Refried Beans, Queso Fresca
Spanish Rice
Green-sauce corn tortilla Enchilada, (some with cooked ground turkey, some without.)
Green Salad


Wednesday:
Sloppy Joe, or
fried egg sandwich on bun, topped with sloppy joe sauce.
fruit

Thursday:
something with yams and leftovers.


Friday:
Pizza. It's always Pizza on Friday.
usually with apples or green salad or both.

Elizabeth's conversion, apostacy, and attempts to come back to the fold

Okay, enough with the religious metaphors.

I grew up in Texas and New Mexico--meat country! We were meat eaters--at least the rest of my family liked meaty things--ham, bacon, sausage, hamburgers, and such. My parents were/are both educators so we didn't have lots of money growing up, and my mom didn't buy lots of fancy stuff. We ate, in my memory at least, the same 5 or 6 meals for dinner.

I never liked anything porcine, and abhorred steak. I didn't do much cooking as a teenager. I don't recollect ever really touching meat. When I went to BYU, I don't know what I ate the first few months. I know I had never heard of scrod before the Y--and never since, come to think of it. I had a lot of intestinal distress that first semester. Looking back on it now, it was probably more nerves than anything. Sometime during that first semester I met a girl who was from the Bay area and she was a vegetarian, and had been for several years.

I don't think it had ever occurred to me to not eat meat, but when the concept was presented, it just made good sense religiously, economically, environmentally, and physically; and from that time, until I was 31, I was a vegetarian (ovo-lacto--I tried vegan for about a year, but it was too hard). I had a boyfriend who was Indian, and a devout/orthodox vegetarian, so that worked out well. We were together for about 4 years so I learned to cook a lot of vegetarian food. I was completely happy in my vegetarian life. There used to be a place in Provo called Govinda's and I ate there weekly. And Bombay House, too. I miss those days. :)

Every now and then, very, very rarely, I'd get a craving for meat, and I'd skulk myself to a good burger joint and get something to go, and eat flesh on some back road where I hopefully wouldn't be 'caught'. I met my husband as a veg and he married me as a veg. He'd dated other social work hippie types so he was used to vegetarians, and Portland is chock full of them.

When I was 31 we got pregnant. It hadn't occurred to me to not continue vegetarianism. But then I started reading all those What to Expect/What to Eat books and I got nervous. I worried I would be hurting our baby by not getting enough protein.

So, I bought some boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I honestly had never bought raw flesh before this. I read in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook what to do. But I was so worried that I would under-cook them and get some dread disease, that basically I made chicken jerky. It was soo dry. I laugh thinking about it because I'm still pretty neurotic. Whenever I eat really juicy chicken and think it is so much better than my typical results....it's sad, really--I get scared I'm going to be salmonella-ized. I've never cooked a roast. I have bought one whole chicken in my life--it's probably cheaper to go that route than buying boneless/skinless.

Ever since, we eat meat a few times a week. A 2.5-3 lb bag of frozen chicken breasts lasts easily a week. Tonight I made spaghetti sauce with turkey sausage. My husband is just happy I feed him so he doesn't fuss about meat or no meat. But he prefers to have meat than go back to vegetarian all the time. My older daughter acts like I'm depriving her if there isn't meat in dinner, but my 5 year old prefers the vegetarian stuff. I don't ever buy anything made from pigs. If I had money I'd go back to organic dairy/eggs/flesh.

I'd like my goal to be making my meat go even further. I think that would be more harmony-inducing than going 100% meat-free. I could just go back to not eating meat myself, but that is a pain. But, as I'm thinking aloud (so to speak), I could just not eat the meat in the dish, giving it to the carnivores... which could make the meat go a little further?? Hmmm.....

Right now, my goal is also to try to lower my grocery bill by about $10 a week.

So, that's me, and how I'm connected to the blog.

A Lazy Woman's Strategy for Feeding The Part-Vegetarian Family

Yes, I was once vegetarian too; now I am only half the days of the week. However, one of my daughters is a full-time vegetarian.

And once I flipped through food magazines and great cookbooks and made beautiful meals. I still love the family dinner, but I don't love the planning and creating time anymore. I'm all about dinner on the table at 6:00 night after night after night, so someone can help with the dishes and everyone can do their homework. Perhaps after a few years of rest I'll be interested in cooking again--right now we just need to eat.

Despite my avowed non-interest in preparing food, I've managed to get a lot of split dinners on the table for the last three years. My daughter went veggie at age 11 (ovo-lacto). I had been telling her to wait until she goes to college to become vegetarian, like her father and I did, but once she was taller than me the "stunt your growth" lie wasn't very effective. Though it was typical for us to happily have two or more vegetarian dinners a week, the entire family didn't want to be pulled into meatlessness because of one preteen. Hence the split meals: dinners that have a vegetarian and meat version at the same table.

For example, after church today we had pulao rice (a sort of saffron rice) [rice recipe] in the rice cooker, with an approximately indian tomato curry garnished with hard-boiled eggs [tomato curry recipe], and some rewarmed chicken leftovers. Served with some green salad and carrot sticks, each person in the family made his or her own plate, though I do expect the younger ones to have a taste of everything. And that simple meal, with pretensions to ethnicity, is considered a fancy one in my current reign of culinary laziness.

Here are some other split meals. I'm sure you've already done some of these, and I'd love to hear what other ones you've done that I haven't thought of.

Tacos--tacos are a natural meal for the vegetarian/meat loving family. Put out the beans and meat in separate bowls, along with the bowls for cheese, lettuce, and salsa, and let everyone assemble their own. imo, watermelon is always a good accompaniment to tacos.

Spaghetti--we went through a phase where one kid wanted spaghetti every night. Once a week is really over my limit. I bought frozen meatballs and cooked a few each time to supplement the meat-eaters, and provided scrambled eggs for the vegetarians. Hey, scrambled eggs with marinara sauce is really good. A couple times I was caught skipping the pasta. I love it with green beans and a green salad. Isn't it almost blue lake season?

Chili Dogs. I've got to have them every month or two. I don't make my chili--remember I'm lazy--I just keep a few commercially canned cans of vegetarian chili in the pantry. The young meat-hungry purist child wants a dog and a bun and wouldn't allow even ketchup--the vegetarian happily fills her bun with chili and tops it with cheese. I'm somewhere in the middle, with chopped onion and pickle relish.

Stir-fry. Remember how in all the recipes have you cook the meat, set it aside, stir fry the vegetables, and then return the meat to the pan? Stir fry for a split family means the meat and vegetables each get their own pan, then maybe a small third pan for a little stir-fried egg or tofu. I love it when I can splurge on commercial vegetarian spring rolls or pot stickers as a side, or follow up with family-pleasing fortune cookies from a box.

Pumpkin pancakes. I love pumpkin pancakes. The easiest way is with a whole-wheat pancake mix--you just make it as usual and throw in a couple spoonfuls of canned cooked pumpkin and a dash of cinnamon. Fancier ways are to make the pancakes from scratch, and to throw in mashed winter squash leftover from dinner two nights before. I like to microwave a couple frozen sausage patties to serve with the pancakes. It helps throw off the non-vegetarians who are keeping score.

Hawaiian haystacks, a nostalgic delight. I did something with cream of mushroom soup and curry powder as the sauce, and offered the cooked chicken separately. No one but you will realize, it's just another form of taco bar.

Vegetarian Soups of all sorts, serve with baked chicken or pork chop--from today or from leftovers--as an optional side. They say the meat-eaters only need a serving the size of a deck of cards anyway, and they don't mean an Uno deck. Add some whole wheat rolls and milk (we're not vegan) and we're all covered.

And finally, keep some gardenburgers in the freezer. For those days when someone just has to have broiled red snapper, or aunt lucy's casserole spam delight.

You don't have to do it all at once

You know how when you ask your 3 year old whether she'd rather have 20 pennies or two dimes, and she'll take the pennies every time?

I was a vegetarian for a long time, from 18-30 years old. Now, I eat mostly poultry. It's very rare that I'll eat red meat, and it's mostly cooked not by me--think Sunday dinner at Mom's house.
I'm willing to cook meat for my family, but not very much. About half the menus for dinner during the week have meat (usually boneless, skinless chicken breasts, or ground turkey). My 5 year old wouldn't care if she never ate flesh again. Unfortunately, my 8 year old feels mistreated without it. My husband is so grateful I gave up strictly vegetarian cooking he doesn't fuss either way.

I have no compelling interest in making anyone give up meat altogether. But, if we can work together to help each other find ways to eat less, that is a good thing to my way of thinking. And that is where the penny analogy comes in. The trick for cutting down meat in your house, if you're not going to give it up altogether, is make a dish look like it has a lot. If you normally use 4 breasts in a recipe, just use 2, and chop them super-small, or shred it. When serving the dish to carnivorous family members, 'plate' their serving with lots of meat on top, so they can see that there is plenty there.

What other ways have readers found to pull one over on their family members? :)