Sneaking Vegetarian Dishes on the Family

Anyone else do this? Under the guise of "themed" food nights, I am making two entirely vegetarian suppers for my family this week. One mediterranian night, with chick pea, tomato and rosemary sauce over pasta, with feta cheese sprinkled on top, and tabouli salad on the side. And then one asian night, with no-cook spring rolls, ginger sauce, sauteed garlic green beans, and veggie stir fry on brown rice.

I like to give the family a variety of dishes, some vegetarian, some not.  They're all used to my mushroom curries, bean casseroles and vegetable chillis now!  The only exception is my Mum who is the fussiest eater imaginable.  The problem being that she only likes bland food... no spice, no onions, no garlic, no herbs.  Bland food is pretty awful at the best of times.  Bland vegetarian food is inedible!

YES.  I do this every time I visit my family!  At first, I would tell them exactly what was in every dish in hopes they would realize that vegetarian food was awesome, but I soon realized that if they were told it was vegetarian, they wouldn't try it!  Now I just put everything out and give a vague description ("they're tacos", not mentioning the tempeh) and everything gets eagerly devoured.

And gi-jane, a world without spices, onions, and garlic is a sad, sad place indeed! I can't believe anyone would willingly live that way!

Make them chili with tofu instead of hamburger, let it set over night so the tofu takes on the flavours.  They will never know, if you don't tell them.

You have to crumble the tofu so it looks like hamburger when cooked.

When I moved out of my mum's I left behind lots of veggie meals I'd made in the freezer so she has been eating them and serving them to people without telling them that the mince/chicken is actually quorn. No one has mentioned anything. I'm sure if you gave a meat eater beef mince and quorn mince and asked them which was the real one they'd be able to tell the difference (they look different if nothing else) but if you just serve it they've no idea. Just shows how little notice people actually take about their food. They just stuff it in!! Lol.

When people visit me they know I'm veggie so they know they're getting veggie food - no way to hide that! But it is having a hilarious side effect - whenever anyone stays with me and eats my veggie meals their digestion goes into overdrive! Ok, I do tend to cook nice spicy chillis and curries, sometimes with beans and lentils, but still - they haven't even finished the dish before they're off to the loo!! Maybe I'm just used to it! :P  Despite the 'cleansing' effect, everyone always enjoys my meals and they certainly don't miss the meat/fish.

I am the QUEEN of this!

Okay so my claim to fame: My partner is from a meat + potatoes + side veg family. When we go over there I have to eat before we go, because although his mum knows that I'm vegetarian she thinks all vegetarians eat are frozen vegetables that have been steamed (yes I always bring one dish to be polite).... okay now I'm off track.

In any case one of the partners friends who is in a metal band (signed by SONY) you can imagine what his diet consists of crashed at our place for about 6 months while the band was going through de-tox (no not all of my friends are *this* exciting)..... anyways I only cook vegan so when he came over I wasn't about to alter that. I've always told my partner that if he want's meat dishes then he can cook them (quite frankly I'd probably food poison him since I don't know how to cook meat). So it's 6 years late and after staying at our place for 6 months this heavy metal, tattooed, pierced crazy drummer guy from a down home rural farm community still raves to people about the veggie chili, the breaded eggplant, and about half a dozen other veggie dishes I made that we never really told him were fully veggie until he asked!

My partner (without asking him to) has also stopped eating red meat (say's he's lost the taste for it) and I really don't see him eating much meat at all, and little dairy or eggs..... 

Tasty cooking wins over all!