Everyone is home for the summer, yup that means that we have 8 adults living under one roof.
I like to make evening meals that even those who come in late can still enjoy. But having so many people causes some conflict at dinner time. In the family mix we have vegans, vegetarians, and Neanderthal meat eaters.
What’s a mother to do?
So like a mom, I came up with a rotation solution that would be acceptable for all. During the week we would have:
- 2 meat dinners
- 2 vegan dinners
- 3 vegetarian dinners
Everyone’s happy.
And then like the tricky mom that I am (and always will be), I decided to help my family out in its quest for a healthy diet and I quietly changed the schedule to 1 meat dinner a week and the rest vegan/vegetarian.
And I didn’t tell anyone.
No one has noticed (and as none of my kids read my blog because “We live through what you write about” they still won’t know after this post goes live.) In the past few weeks, I’ve substituted tempeh for chicken strips in fajitas, cashews and cauliflower for meat in curry, portabella mushrooms in stews, TVP (Texturized Vegetable Protein) in chili, sloppy joes and even, like last night’s dinner, in lasagna.
Yup this is vegetarian lasagna. I sauteed a yellow pepper, mushrooms, onions and vegetarian crumbles to which I added some olive oil and a packet of Fajitas spice. Combines that with cheeses, layered with noodles and sauce and voila! A dinner even meat-eaters will eat.
Oh us tricky, tricky moms.
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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at Wendy@SimpleThrift.com
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