Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Veg Challenges

We have a lovely weekend vacation coming up soon. We're going to a beach house my sister in law and her husband rented for a family get together. Everyone is looking forward to it; hanging out, enjoying the great outdoors, enjoying each others' company. The only issue for us is what the heck we're going to eat!

DH and I are the only pure vegetarians in the family. The girls are more flexitarian; they eat vegetarian at home and some of the time when we go out, but they'll order the occasional non-veg entree at restaurants. The Eldest can not resist shrimp. Of the three kids, The Middle Child is the most committed to going veg but she'll still waver every once in a while. The Youngest, aka The Wild Child, is full out carnivore. I have to buy him luncheon meat to eat at home or he'd starve and he ALWAYS orders meat when we go out. (I knew he needed meat when he got all cranky and peaked after we first went veg; he was so pathetic. I had to cave or I would have been the worst mommy in the world!) NONE of our other relatives are vegetarian.

So what are we going to eat? I found out that they are planning burgers for dinner our first night there. I guess we can take frozen veggie burgers but I really don't like those very much; they taste like chemicals. I was hoping DH might find some way to make fresh bean burgers, maybe put the mix together here and make the patties there, but he said the mix would dry out too much. (Sadness.) At least we know what's planned for the first meal and can come up with something that will tie in; after that I have no idea what might be on the menu. I'm going to take some quinoa. We can cook that quickly in a microwave then flavor it up with whatever is on hand. We can make quesadillas (or burritos or tacos) or a quinoa salad with it so it's very versatile. We'll take fruit, of course. We're not sure if we'll take the Vita Mix, which we use daily. We have to figure out what cookware to take. There's probably some there but we don't know what. There's a grocery store nearby so we can purchase some of what we'll need there. We have to go to specialty stores (like Whole Foods) for some of our staples but we can either take those items with us or manage without for a weekend. There's a health food store nearby but I don't know what they carry. (Some of those stores only carry vitamins; we'll have to see.)

So I have some new issues to plan for when we travel. I'm up for the challenge!

2 comments:

Vegan Aide said...

We've been there! Take a large cooler full of the food you eat if you are driving. Changing the ice is easy and it can last a week that way - we sent my daugter off to Gril Scout camp for a week this way, with all of her food packed.

Spaghetti is always easy to make and have on hand, just a jar and a box, or a garlic spinach pasta with bow ties.

Potaotes, baked, with the fixings you bring.

For the burgers you can make it using dried beans, from Whole Foods.

Let me know if you are taking a cooler and I can give you more ideas.

Kim said...

Hi:
Great ideas; thanks!! Yes, we'll take a cooler and I'm assuming there's a full kitchen at the house. We can probably make just about anything we want, but we'll be juggling for kitchen time and dealing with the plans others have made re food. Plus we won't want to spend a lot of time on food prep and clean up; we want to be out playing. :) There's probably a grill, something we haven't experimented with since going veg even though I've seen a lot of pics of grilled veggies that make my mouth water.

PS: How do you make the garlic spinach pasta?