Herbie
Rendezvous Conspirator
Finally, a topic I'm qualified to answer.
My wife has been vegetarian since before we met 22 years ago. I do all the cooking, both at home and in-camp. Our daughter and I eat meat. 90% of the time it's zero problem, and honestly cooking for a 6 year old is way harder than cooking veggie. In my wife's case, she developed a strong distaste for meat after eating campus cafeteria food in college. She is not vegetarian for political, ecological, or moral reasons, nor is she a "militant vegetarian" talking about her choices with anyone else. She really just doesn't like the taste of meat. I occasionally get her to try a bite of something just in case her tastes have changed, but they haven't.
Strategies to make your life easier:
As for camping-friendly vegetarian meals:
I also wrote a longer blog piece on this subject for a friend who'd recently become married to a vegetarian. You might find that useful also.
My wife has been vegetarian since before we met 22 years ago. I do all the cooking, both at home and in-camp. Our daughter and I eat meat. 90% of the time it's zero problem, and honestly cooking for a 6 year old is way harder than cooking veggie. In my wife's case, she developed a strong distaste for meat after eating campus cafeteria food in college. She is not vegetarian for political, ecological, or moral reasons, nor is she a "militant vegetarian" talking about her choices with anyone else. She really just doesn't like the taste of meat. I occasionally get her to try a bite of something just in case her tastes have changed, but they haven't.
Strategies to make your life easier:
- Make your side dishes vegetarian. Most are anyway, but leave the bacon off your brussels sprouts, or have it on the side - I get a lot of mileage out of quality "sides only" some nights, then a meat dish for myself.
- Cook "base recipes", then add meat at the end. e.g. for morning fry-ups I saute cubed potatoes, onions, etc. in olive oil, then split the base and add sausage, corned beef, or whatever to my half.
- As above, make meals with a lot of overlap in the preparation where you can easily offer a choice of filling (tacos) or sauce (pasta) for the meat-eaters or veggies without much more work.
- Substitute veggie stock for meat stocks - Rice, pasta, and pan sauces made from veggie stock taste just as good or better.
- Figure out what proteins she will eat, and lean on them whenever possible. Luckily my wife still eats fish, for example, so we have a heavy rotation of salmon, tilapia, shrimp, etc. which is healthy anyhow
- Avoid most soy/veggie substitute-meats, unless she REALLY likes them. I think they're gross and my wife thinks most either taste like dogfood or (worse) too much like a cheap version of the meat they're emulating
- Exception: There are a few quality substitute products that are a convenient swap:
- El Burrito brand Soyrizo - A wonderful mix of spices, and if you fry it up it gets a good texture. Tasty enough that I've stopped eating real mexican-style pork chorizo alltogether, I actually prefer the substitute and its WAY less greasy (but you do need to add a little fat, like olive oil, to cook it)
- Lightlife brand Mexican crumbles - They have a plain version which is really, um, plain, but the mexican version makes a quality alternative for taco filling, egg scrambles, empanadas, etc. Many a taco night in our house this is the only filling. Topped with tomatoes, cheese, and the right hot-sauce, it's hard to distinguish from taco bell's filling!
- Morningstar Farms brand Bacon Strips - something about how they process the protein in these makes them an amazingly good analog. There's two different "textures" of the stuff, so it simulates the "crunchy bits and fatty bits" of a good bacon strip. Wife and daughter swear by them, but I still make real bacon for myself.
- For grilling, most of the beef-patty substitutes aren't very good, but the Trader Joes Masala Patty, which is nothing like a burger, functions in the same way, in that you can grill it and slap it on a bun with condiments and its very tasty. As I mentioned above, this fits nicely into my workflow since I can just put out all the fillers on the table, grill burgers for me and the kid, and grill one of these for the wife. They come frozen, but will keep reasonably well for a few days in my camper's fridge section, if the freezer is full.
As for camping-friendly vegetarian meals:
- Greek "Pita Pockets" - Warm pita-halves, lettuce, tomato, onion, tzatziki sauce, cucumbers, etc. I marinade some tri-tip steaks for me and the kiddo, and fry up a few falafel for wife
- Pilaf of Doom - actually learned this from Chef Ara at OvEx '11 - a generic cook up of some sort of grain (quinoa, rice, etc.) or cous cous, with saute'd zucchini, onions, tomatoes, etc. VERY filling, and easy to make lots of variations using the same method. Make it asian, make it spanish, etc.
- Chili - Lots of ways to cook this either all veggie, or use the cook-base-then-split-and-add-meat method. Here's my favorite all-veggie recipe.
- Almost everything in the recipe section of DirtyGourmet.com - A quality collection of ingredients from a set of serious foodie-campers, and they divide the recipes into sections like "car camping" vs. "backpacking", etc. - Every recipe I've tried has been fantastic.
I also wrote a longer blog piece on this subject for a friend who'd recently become married to a vegetarian. You might find that useful also.
