s/o: Will your husband eat meatless meals?

[Anonymous]

I was just reading the Meal Planning Mondays thread. Do your husbands really eat some of these meals? E.g. Watermelon salad and Gnocchi. Quinoa with roasted eggplant. Carrot ginger soup. Cold pasta salad and fresh fruit. Things that sound yummy but to my very active and, take this as tongue in cheek, "manly man" DH these would be side dishes. Where's the meat, where's the solid centerpiece of this meal? I'm starting to get his buy in on at least one vegetarian meal per week, but even then it needs to be a very filling meal.

Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely not disparaging these meals. They sound awesome, but I'd likely get lots of sighs and questions about whether he could just grill a few pork chops or chicken to go on the side.

[Anonymous]

Well, my husband is a vegetarian so yes, there's nothing else he would eat. But my husband wouldn't be satisfied with just soup. Just as carnivores tend to make the meat the centerpiece of the meal, we have to have a protein or it's not really a meal.

[Anonymous]

We have meatless meals a couple times a week, and fish a few times too. My husband definitely appreciates a good steak, but he has no problems with eggplant parm, veggie pad thai, or huevos rancheros or something. There's always some sort of protein involved - beans, tofu, eggs, cheese. He's pretty health conscious though, and probably eats more fruits and veggies than me, so that helps. He also went through a brief vegetarian stage in college, so doesn't automatically turn his nose up at things like tempeh or quinoa.

[Anonymous]

A bit of dumb question. Are you implying that DHs eat differently than DWs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A bit of dumb question. Are you implying that DHs eat differently than DWs?

I don't think that even needs to be implied. Of course they do.

[Anonymous]

My DH is like yours...he'll eat them, but always jokingly ask, where's the beef? Also, I've noticed on the nights we go meatless, he'll always have a huge bowl of cereal snack later that evening. I love the kinds of meals you listed above, and could forgo meat altogether, but DH would be very unhappy about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A bit of dumb question. Are you implying that DHs eat differently than DWs?

Well, men and women do have differences, no?

http://www.livestrong.com/article/409771-healthy-eating-plan-for-men/

[Anonymous]

Sometimes. Since he cooks almost all of our meals, he mostly gets to pick what we are going to have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH is like yours...he'll eat them, but always jokingly ask, where's the beef? Also, I've noticed on the nights we go meatless, he'll always have a huge bowl of cereal snack later that evening. I love the kinds of meals you listed above, and could forgo meat altogether, but DH would be very unhappy about it.

My husband does the same thing.

[Anonymous]

I'm a vegetarian and I'm the one who does the meal plan/cooks, so, yes. Although I will cook up a piece of fish or chicken to include in his meal if it doesn't seem 'hearty' enough. Or put pepperoni on his half of a homemade pizza. He probably is completely meatless for dinner about 3 times a week.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I pointed out to DH that we have been eating a lot less meat and he didn't even notice. We haven't had steak or pork roast in probably a month.

Yes we eat eggs, and we definitely incorporate meat products like pancetta or pepperoni, but it's not like steak or chicken breast. Pizza is a once a week staple; so is pasta (so like cheese tortellini with sauce); 'breakfast' for dinner; etc. Basically, we were wasting meat because we weren't cooking it in time, so I stopped buying it - especially red meat, which is very expensive. IF we eat meat for dinner, it's chicken (DH won't eat fish, though I wish he would!).

We are also learning to cook more with tofu and trying more bean dishes. DH will eat them as long as there is cheese too

[Anonymous]

Yeah, my husband is a meat guy. My three yr old son is following. I am not vegetarian, but have alway loved vegetarian dishes and love to cook with veggies, legumes and grains. So, I try to cook a large amount of meat a couple times a week to make sure there are leftovers for them. I compensate with my food likes in the side dishes. Well, they are my main dishes, but their side dishes!

[Anonymous]

My husband is a huge meat-eater, and prefers beef. I don't. But we've come up with some compromises. I don't think he'd eat anything as super-fancy as what you are describing, but when I do a lentil/chickpea based dish, he loves it. Very filling.

[Anonymous]

I post in that thread--even though my DH does the vast majority of the cooking. In summer I'd say we eat at least 3 meals a week that are not meat based (they're not always technically vegetarian because we may use some stock or bacon fat for frying or something). In winter we eat a lot more meat though.

[Anonymous]

My DH is one of those people who forgets to eat. As such, he'll eat pretty much whatever. His only real complaint is when it's too "spice-y," spelled wrong to reflect the true meaning: too many spices.