Feeding the parents

My parents are visiting this week so I've been feeding them. This isn't as easy as it sounds. Feeding a meat eater for one night is not too hard, but 5 days of meals gets interesting. I've tried to mix foods that they are used to with slipping in some new things for them to try that aren't too scary. Here is what we've been eating this week in case you soon find yourself in a similar situation.

Breakfasts are pretty easy. I bought a ton of fruit and some cereals and rice milk. We also are going out to brunch today at a place called Morning Ray's here in Park City.

Lunches are tricky. The first day I took them to Vertical Diner in Salt Lake for some breakfast for lunch. I had the biscuits and gravy with some vegan sausage and tofu scramble. My mom went for the french toast and my step-father had the portobello reuben. It was a success. The next day I made sandwiches with a BLT-like salad sandwich spread from Dreena Burton's book Eat Drink and Be Vegan. The salad had fakin' bacon, tomatoes, scallions, avocado.. mmm. I served it on toast with some vegenaise. It was loved by all (the parents even liked the fakin' bacon). Yesterday we needed to picnic so it was PB&J or Peanut Butter/Banana sandwiches and some carrot sticks and apples. Tomorrow I am planning on making a Tofu "egg" salad for sandwiches.

For dinners, since I had a pound of beautiful mushrooms (morels, chanterelles, porcini, turkey of the woods, baby shitakes) from the farmer's market*, i made a mushroom truffle risotto (veganized, of course). Last night we had a mexican salad. Tonight will be Mike's famous stir fry with tofu. Tomorrow night is peanut sesame noodles (with spinach ground up in the sauce).

Hopefully if your parents come to visit, you can use some of these ideas to feed them well for a few days. It's always so hard to figure out how to do this.

* The mushroom dude gave me a "vegan discount" because I mentioned I was vegan while he was telling me that the mushrooms go well with lamb. He gave me $28 worth of mushrooms for $10.