Hey everyone! I'm 41 years old and have been a borderline vegetarian for over 30 years. I outright quit eating meat in 7th grade but started again in my early 20s for simplicity. I never really became a meat-eater much though. If I ever took a portion, it was a one inch square at the most; however, I generally just cook dinner and serve up the meat portions to the family and then load my plate with everything else.

Hubby's was always a meat & potatos kind of guy. More recently he's finally seeing the light and willing to go vegie most of the time. What inspired his new change? The new changes in the USDA daily requirements -- saying the main staple of our diets should be fruits and vegetables. Mad cow helped him along too I suspect. We have a 13-year-old boy who is pretty open to trying new things although he prefers his vegies fresh instead of cooked.

So we've been a vegie family for about 5 months. It's been relatively easy since it's summer -- lots and lots of big salads! My MAIN problem has been that most vegie recipes are pasta or rice based whereas the goal is for the largest percentage of our diet to be vegies and fruits. I'm completely perplexed as to how I can create meals that are almost entirely vegies and fruits. Of course, we'll have pasta and rice throughout the week but I don't want all our meals to be based on carbs.

btw, there's no way anyone in my family, including myself, will eat tofu. Are nuts a good enough source of protein and iron? At least we all love spinach! Soy can't be overdone here since my son had a milk alergy as an infant and drank soy until his first birthday. I've been instructed that children who are alergic to milk as infants run the risk of becoming alergic to soy later in life. As a result, he can have soy but it can't be a main staple in our diet.

It's so refreshing to finally not have to gross out making foods that I opposed. But I need to find variety BIG TIME to keep the family on course. I'm so glad I found this forum. I'm hoping that I might learn more tips on helping my family continue with this healthy transition.

Anyone have ideas?

No tofu for any of you? It's possible, of course, just a little surprising that all three of you don't like it. There are tofu-free vegetarians, it's not uncommon.

For the cooler months, you'll probably want to become well aquainted with lentil soup. It is delicious, easy to cook, and you can use red lentils, onions, garlic, carrot juice, chick peas, carrots, broccoli, whatever kind of vegetable you want in it. Red lentils are a good source of protein, and you don't need to even think of carbs unless you want to.

If your family likes eggplant, that's something else that can make a great meal. Slice it up and grill it, dice it and add it to a vegetable stir-fry, puree it and make it into an eggplant burger. Zucchini also excellent. If you get a big zuchinni (I cannot spell zuchinni consistently, sorry) you can scoop out the inside, mix it together with chopped tomatoes, potato, spices, and maybe something like textured vegetable protein, put it back in, and bake it in the oven.

Would your family eat textured vegetable protein? It looks sort of like ground meat, but doesn't have that much of a taste to it. You can use it to make a fantastic vegetarian chili, for example.

Looking through recipes here... Oh, there's a great lentil loaf that I got from Kreeli's site (she's a member here). Umm, I can't seem to find her website for some reason. Well, I'm sure someone will post it, or I'll find it and post it.

Have a look in the recipes section, you'll find a lot of great things. You may also want to consider having your rice/bread/pasta at dinner time, if you're not wanting to make too much of that during the day.

No tofu for any of you? It's possible, of course, just a little surprising that all three of you don't like it. There are tofu-free vegetarians, it's not uncommon.
I really have no idea if they'd like it or not. I've just spent so many years cooking meat when I don't like it. I really don't want to start having to cook tofu when I don't like it. Call me selfish but I've been cooking stuff I don't like for about 20 years and I'm just tired of it.

For the cooler months, you'll probably want to become well aquainted with lentil soup. It is delicious, easy to cook, and you can use red lentils, onions, garlic, carrot juice, chick peas, carrots, broccoli, whatever kind of vegetable you want in it. Red lentils are a good source of protein, and you don't need to even think of carbs unless you want to.
Soup's a great idea. There are so many bean based soups. I'm already trying to incorporate beans into salads on occassion too. I just want to start getting some main dishes that are all vegie. I envision a plate full of vegies with the most amazing tastes. I just don't have a clue as to how to get them to taste special or different so that they actually have a 'main dish' feel to them instead of seeming like we're just eating a side dish for dinner.

If your family likes eggplant, that's something else that can make a great meal. Slice it up and grill it, dice it and add it to a vegetable stir-fry, puree it and make it into an eggplant burger. Zucchini also excellent. If you get a big zuchinni (I cannot spell zuchinni consistently, sorry) you can scoop out the inside, mix it together with chopped tomatoes, potato, spices, and maybe something like textured vegetable protein, put it back in, and bake it in the oven.
Yummy idea. I used to stuff zucchini with non-vegie material and I love the idea of switching the recipe over to a vegie stuff. Instead of a vegetable protein, I'll probably experiment with ground nuts or something.

Would your family eat textured vegetable protein? It looks sort of like ground meat, but doesn't have that much of a taste to it. You can use it to make a fantastic vegetarian chili, for example.
I've never heard of it. It kind of frightens me. But I'll overcome that and realize that it probably might work as well as substituting ground turkey for ground beef. Since ground turkey doesn't have much flavor, it could only be used successfully in very spicy recipes. I'd guess this textured vegetable protein would probably work with any of those recipes I already know so I'll give it a try.

Looking through recipes here... Oh, there's a great lentil loaf that I got from Kreeli's site (she's a member here). Umm, I can't seem to find her website for some reason. Well, I'm sure someone will post it, or I'll find it and post it.

Have a look in the recipes section, you'll find a lot of great things. You may also want to consider having your rice/bread/pasta at dinner time, if you're not wanting to make too much of that during the day.
Thanks! I'll search around. I'm mostly interested in kid-friendly since hubby will deal fairly well with the transition because of health reasons. He hasn't complained about having salads all summer. He's getting tired of the bland pasta sauses I've been creating though.

My son absolutely hates red sauces so I've been experimenting with other olive oil sauces. I just can't seem to get them to have much taste. Now I'm trying to get into the asian sauces. Hubby loves them but my son hasn't even taken a bite. He just says 'ewwwe, brown noodles" and decides he'll have cereal.

I can't complain though. It's going to be hard to change the eating habits of a young teenager. I'm sure the fact I quit eating meat when I was in 7th grade was annoying to my mother. She just didn't make a big deal about it or change her cooking. Instead she put a bottle of vitamins in the center of the dinner table and whenever I would pass on the meat tray, she'd say "take a vitamin."

Alicia - welcome.
I'm only a couple months older than you, (nice to have another member of the "over 40" crowd here!!).
I've been vegetarian all my life, recently went vegan - it's a whole new adventure, I can relate to alot of what you're saying...

I have three girls, (two teens and a 5-year-old) and though they've been raised vegetarian, they still have plenty of times they turn up their noses at the "strange brown things" that Mom cooks... (they DO love several of the ways I make tofu though..)

One comment, you may want to do some current research about your son's allergy...my 13 year old was also allergic to milk - out dietitian told us she would probably NOT develop any soy allergies, and in fact might outgrow the milk allergy...(she has)... we don't use milk anyway, and actually we all prefer almond milk, but we do have soy a couple times a week with tofu, tempeh, tvp or other products.

I think your ideas are great for wanting to use whole foods and lots of veggies and fruits. I am hoping your son is getting enough of the "growing" nutrients he needs however...Do make sure and educate yourself carefully on nutrition requirements - especially for growing children/teens - to make sure that you are providing adequate protein and carbs (yes, carbs are NEEDED) for your family.

I know if I served a just a platter of veggies and fruit, no matter how beautiful and tasty they were, my kids would be hungry again in an hour...

Try some whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, barley) cooked and added to the veggies (like a stir fry, cold salad, soup or casserole). Not an unreasonable amount of carbs and loads of protein.

Legumes - beans, peas, lentils, peanuts - they will be your best friend! As mentioned above - soups, definitely... or various ethnic foods lend themselves well to use with beans: the stand-by bean-burrito (does your son like "Mexican" food?) or Indian curries and dal, peanut sauce for veggies, garbanzos can be ground or mashed and used in falafel or hummus, 3-bean chili is good summer OR winter... the list is endless.

Seriously - find a good veggie cookbook or recipe web-site (lots of recipes here on VB) or try Kreeli's site - she has awesome stuff: http://www.veganmania.com/ or Nava Atlas has a good site as well (she's written several cookbooks - all quite child friendly): http://www.vegkitchen.com/recipes.htm

Any of these sites will give you tons and tons of great ideas... as will the helpful people here on VB.

Good luck.