My husband and I have been vegetarians for around 40 years now, and our adult kids are both lifelong vegetarians. So, our favorite family recipes are naturally all vegetarian.
My Family’s Diets
Sometimes my husband and I have been vegan (not when our kids were still growing), although most of the time we’ve been lacto-ovo vegetarian. And we’re often a mixture of both. For the past few years, I’ve typically been vegan (except for eggs) five days a week. I’m not picky about being perfectly vegan, but I do try to eat as healthily as possible (allowing for some chocolate treats, of course! ;))
My extended family has a real mixture of diets. That’s never been a problem and we have happy family gatherings with meat eaters and vegetarians together. You’ll find my mom’s wholegrain flatbread recipe that we have during our extended-family gatherings here: Happy Families Can Have More Than One Diet.
My daughter, Christina, is on a 6-Month Nutrition and Fitness Experiment right now where she eats a gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free vegetarian diet. I’m so impressed with her discipline! She has a link in her main post to a free printable vegan recipe that we all enjoy. She’ll be adding more recipes over the next few months as well.
Favorite Healthy Family Recipes
I’ve always loved to cook and bake with my kids, and that’s been an important part of our family holidays. One of our favorite holiday meals is our vegetarian Thanksgiving meal, which we also serve on Christmas Day. Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes and Family Cookbook has free downloads of two of our favorite dishes from that meal.
My husband and I often like to have healthy gluten-free muffins containing oat bran with a fruit smoothie for a light meal. Here’s a post about cooking together that contains a link to my gluten-free chocolate muffin recipe: Creating Healthy Family Recipes.
My kids and their spouses have copies of the same homemade recipe book that I use. Over time, I create new printable recipe pages. If you check my daughter’s 6-Month Nutrition and Fitness Experiment post and my recipes category every now and then, you’ll find some of the latest healthy recipes we’re enjoying.
I hope you have fun preparing healthy recipes with your family, too! π
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting with the theme Family Recipes. This month our participants are sharing their recipes, their stories, their pictures, and their memories.
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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
- German Red Cabbage: A Family Tradition — At Living Peacefully with Children, Mandy shares her favorite dish and a part of her family’s history.
- Rotisserie Chicken Recipes for Meal Planning — Becky at Crafty Garden Mama shares a new recipe that is in her family’s meal-planning rotation. Check out how she uses a rotisserie chicken to get through the week.
- Grandma Wicken’s Sugar Cookies — Jana Falls at Jananas talks about how special her Grandma’s sugar cookies made her feel.
- Recipe: Seed and Bean Burgers — ANonyMous at Radical Ramblings shares one of her favourite frugal recipes that is also super-healthy and totally delicious.
- PULLING Dinner Together For the Kids – Crockpot Pulled Pork — Lisa at The Squishable Baby PULLS dinner together for the kids.
- The Best Banana Muffin Recipe (Gluten Free & Vegan) — Dionna of Code Name: Mama’s adventures in gluten free baking have not been 100% successful. But today she is guest posting at Fine and Fair to share a banana muffin recipe that will knock your socks off!
- The Pierogie Mama Whips Up Strawberry Pierogies! — Bianca at The Pierogie Mama shares her family’s recipe for strawberry pierogies…a sweet, summery version of the Polish dumplings that she affectionately named her daughter after.
- Mom’s Cookbook — Tree at Mom Grooves digs into the big book her mom created for her six daughters and shares a favorite family recipe.
- Crispy Duck Confit — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama takes the liberty of starting a family recipe tradition with this super simple, totally delicious crispy duck confit.
- Stovetop BBQ Chicken — Amy at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work shares a yummy BBQ chicken recipe that you can make on the stovetop in less than 25 minutes, fridge to table!
- Twice-Baked Sweet Potato Casserole w/Bacon — Martine at Whey Beyond the Naked Truth shares a naked food twist on an old family favorite!
- Strawberry Panna Cotta — KerryAnn at CookingTF.com shows you her favorite dessert, a quick and easy Strawberry Panna Cotta that she enjoys so much, she had it instead of a birthday cake this year.
- Special crepes for a special day — Mikko at Hobo Mama is learning to cook his grandma’s signature holiday meal alongside his dad.
- Three Favorite Family Recipes: To Eat, To Wash, To Play — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings is back with three family favorites: gluten-free vanilla orange sugar cookies, DIY powdered laundry detergent, and something fun for the kids: homemade “Flubber”!
- Black Bean Soup Forever — Mercedes at Project Procrastinot shares a soup recipe that’s been around forever.
- Do you want to know a secret? — SRB at Little Chicken Nuggets lets go of her mac and cheese recipe, a comfort food favourite for friends and family for years.
- Creating Our Own Family Recipes — Emily at S.A.H.M. i AM shares how she’s trying to create meals that her girls will want to pass down to their own children some day.
- Vranameer Chicken: A Family Recipe — Luschka at Diary of a First Child shares a recipe that reminds her of childhood and more specifically, of her mother. It’s a South African take on sweet and sour chicken and what it lacks in healthy it makes up for in tantalising to the taste buds.
- One Recipe, Three Uses: Dishwasher Liquid Detergent, Dish Soap, and Hand Soap — If you love saving money and time, you’ll love this green recipe from Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama, guest posting at Natural Parents Network.
- Our Family’s Favorite Pies — Abbie at Farmer’s Daughter shares recipes and tutorials for the quintessential American dessert.
- Deliciously Easy Crock Pot Chili — Lactating Girl shares her crock pot chili that is not only quick and easy, but awesome.
- All-Purpose Crock Pot Pork — Crunchy Con Mommy‘s simple “recipe” for cooking perfect pork in the crock pot is for whatever mood her family is in!
- Family Rules: A Recipe for Harmony — Cooped-up kids + winter weather + frazzled parents can all blend together into a recipe for disaster. Dionna at Code Name: Mama shares what brought back the peace in her house.
- Favorite Healthy Family Recipes — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares her family’s healthy eating experiences along with links to free printable vegetarian recipes that her family has created with love.
- Grandma’s Banana Bread — Megan at The Boho Mama has early and fond memories of her grandma’s banana bread. It’s love in a loaf!
- Family Comfort Food — Jorje of Momma Jorje shares a recipe handed down that moms have made for their kids, for regular meals as well as to comfort.
If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook page where you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching!
Linked to The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions at Milk and Cuddles and Crystal & Co. and Saturday Show & Tell.
We love to cook together as a family, I couldn’t agree more π
Thanks, Abbie! It’s awesome that you love to cook together! π
Nut loaf sounds delicious!
I’m currently dairy-free because it was bugging my new nursling, and it is tough. I’ll have to check out some of your vegan recipes for more ideas!
Thanks, Crunchy Con Mom! My whole family loves nut loaf. Christina and I (I design the recipe pages) should be adding more vegan recipes to FitBodyFullLife.com during the next month! π
Growing up my family was very much a red meat and potatoes kind of family. Just before marrying I was a nanny to a family who eat a lot of vegetarian food. I dropped 40 lbs while living with them and was the healthiest I had ever been. Once married my husband and I continued to eat very healthy diets, and then our second son came along with over 35 food allergies. It turned our world upside down! I was determined to find a month’s worth of meals our entire family could eat and all enjoy together! It has been so worth it. Yet at the same time we learned a very important lesson-Food is not everything. π Oh how I delight in a great meal!
Thanks for your comment, Renae! That must have been shocking to try to find meals that work with your son’s allergies. I’m so impressed with your perseverance in finding meals that work for your entire family. π
I love that your kids grew up vegetarians and still are. I’m definitely going to forward this to my friend who’s a vegetarian and try out some recipes myself!
Thanks, Claire! I appreciate you forwarding this to your friend. I hope some of the recipes work for you both! π
I’m always inspired by how well your extended family gets along despite different eating habits! It’s a good lesson in how to handle it. Your daughter’s challenge is impressive β is she noticing a change in her health?
Thanks, Lauren! My daughter noticed a huge change in her health. She has Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and had trouble regulating her thyroid levels and weight. Her thyroid levels were perfect at her last checkup, and she spontaneously lost 15 pounds (is at her ideal weight now) without counting calories! π
I just have to point out your parenthetical about chocolate – there are health benefits to it, so it doesn’t have to be the UN-healthy portion of your diet π I’m looking forward to going through your recipes – thank you for the links!
Thanks, Dionna! I do love the new research about chocolate! π
I am so impressed that you’ve gone vegetarian for THAT long AND that your kids continued on in that way. That says something about the respect your kids have for you and the closeness you have had. I’m sure they never felt deprived, either, as that is important with anyone’s diet.
Great info. My readers loved it. Thanks for sharing this mommy solution in my weekly linky party.
Check out your feature here: http://www.crystalandcomp.com/2013/04/top-five-mom-ideas-41413/
Cooking together helps so much and it’s a lot of fun
ten on ten to chocolate vegan recipe .a delight to all vegans.
thanks for sharing the useful article
the choclate Vegan recipe !OMG looks amazing definately worth trying !
becoming vegan i accepted to deal with not getting the tastiest food to eat, but this really changed that perception. thank you
Thanks for sharing your gluten free chocolate cookie muffin recipe. I always find it to be a healthier option to prepare muffins at home and I like knowing what goes in them :). Thinking to try with dark chocolate to get those extra nutrients in!
I LOVE cooking vegetarian and vegan things for the kids. They usually love them and are surprised to find out there are no animal products in them.