Difficulties when company comes...

[Roses]

Not just company. Relatives. Close ones. And not just for a meal. When they come to stay for a few days, which they always do because we live 5 hours away from all our family. So we will have my Mother & her husband, or my dh's parents and brother, and they stay anywhere from 2 nights to 2 weeks (my MIL stays the longest, and my Mom the next longest at a week). Usually as soon as my Mother & stepdad arrive in town, they go to the store and buy steak and burgers etc. to cook at our house. And then cook it up here at our house in some big elaborate thing and it's the main part of the meal they're "making us" which is very nice, but it gets so frustrating! It's a good thing my little family likes mashed potatoes,lol, which are my Mom's other specialty. But I am so getting tired of having all this meat around! Lunch meat for my MIL and FIL and steaks and chicken, am I being un-reasonable? We do try to do more "substantial" meals when visitors come, because usually we eat very light, small meals. But I'll do enchiladas with lots of beans and condiments or we'll do big taco salads (veggie refried beans! Yum!),and big waffle or pancake breakfasts. But people just can't go without their meat for even 2 or 3 days. Just venting I suppose. But I wish my food were good enough for our visiting family! Instead, the house gets loaded with meat & soda (we buy Hansen's, but not the same as coke if you know what I mean!). Maybe I'm just being a big baby about it,lol.

What do you all do when you have guests over?

-Heather

[ShangriLewis]

Um I don't let anyone cook meat in the house. Relatives know if they come here they won't get it. We don't have to do any of the holidays here and people love to take us out for dinner.

My mom the diehard meat eater now orders the Vegetarian pizza from Papa Murphy's because I made her eat here a few times and no she loves it. I love to here you order it over the phone. My mom said vegetarian (Beevis and ).

I try to have lots of variety and homemade baked goods. But, maybe you could comprimise with already cooked meat like deli chickens.

I don't know though. If you comprimise they just keep pushing it. Is your husband veg, too? I think the hardest part would be telling the next visitor that you don't want the meat in your house anymore. It's a hard situation. If your family is anything like my mom I can imagine. Sometimes when my sister come out she picks up fast food. I guess that doesn't really bother me. I lived with her for a while and she eats meat all the time. Ugh..I hate the smell now.

[ArmsOfLove]

Do they know you are vegetarians? If so then it's rather rude of them to make a big deal about preparing meat for you for dinner :shrug I would agree with compromising on some pre-cooked meats--either deli slices or something from the deli counter.

[Marrae]

Usually as soon as my Mother & stepdad arrive in town, they go to the store and buy steak and burgers etc. to cook at our house.

We're not vegetarians but imo that is just rude. :sad2
It used to bug me when my parents brought pasturised milk for them to use here because we use raw.
In other people's homes we always try to fit in with whatever is usual for them (within reason of course).

[MidnightCafe]

I just happened to see this thread come up on the "read posts since last visit" list, and I thought I was going to talk about people who come to your house & are picky eaters and won't eat anything you make. We are not vegetarian at our house, but we do eat vegetables! ;) We have friends who really don't eat vegetables & it's hard to know what to make when they're coming over.

Anyway, I think it's reasonable for you to ask that they not cook meat in your house. Since your family is vegetarian, it makes sense that you would be bothered by people cooking meat in your house. I'd say that it's ok for them to bring already prepared stuff for themselves to eat, but they should respect that you are vegetarian and not prepare a big meal with meat in it for your family...as though they're doing something nice for you or something. :shrug

[Roses]

I think they do feel they're doing us some big favor. Us poor meat deprived souls! Dh is also veg. I never was a huge meat eater, and then a few years ago when we decided to ttc #2, we both decided to cut out meat to get healthier. That was more than 4 years ago. We've had a few setbacks, but we do feel it's important to not have meat now. I'll have to be more vocal about it. Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Helps to know I'm not strange in my thinking. :)

[Celeste]

I entertain quite a bit and serve vegetarian dishes. Enchiladas, lasagna, spaghetti sauces, chili's, etc. + appetizers and desserts. I do get from the library frequently different vegetarian cookbooks. I don't make an issue of it, and nobody seems to think they are eating anything out of the ordinary.

[Roses]

Well, we just got home a few days ago from visiting my in-laws for 4 nights. It actually went okay food wise, dh refused my FIL's offer of McDonald's twice, and we cooked up our gardenburgers when everyone else had steak. And my MIL asked dh to make his vegetarian lasagne! And everyone ate it! I don't even think my BIL's and FIL knew it was veg, because they all ate it just fine. Now that dh has started speaking up about it more, I feel like I have more support in it. I made him say aloud 5 times "I'm a vegetarian",lol, it was so cute. But I think he needed to SAY the words and stop skating around the issue in front of his family. Ahh, so nice.

[ShangriLewis]

:clap

That's cute about your dh.