Feeding My Meat and Cheese Loving 20-year-old Nephew

My nephew, Finn, visits me every summer. I always love making him yummy, healthy food when he’s here. He’s 20, so self-care isn’t top priority at the moment, and he lives on pizza, eggs, burgers, and kebabs. Funny enough, the kid does love a long hot bath!

I can’t say he’s thrilled with all the food I cook, but he’s always happy to try whatever I put in front of him. Here’s a list of the hits from this year’s visit. Some of these are free recipes from the blog, others are from Clean Food Dirty Girl, and some are made up by me.

Gluten-Free Porridge

I thought this would be a hard no, but he loved it. I add lots of fruit, walnuts, and raisins on top and then pour on some non-dairy milk. When I told him the porridge had kale and lentils, he looked confused, and kept eating. 

Veggie-packed breakfast sandwich

He loves egg sandwiches, so I get a little sneaky. I make him a fried egg and add a bunch of herbs like green onions and cilantro. I use vegan mayo and add lots of chopped lettuce to his sandwich. Then I serve it with a big pile of carrot sticks, cucumbers, and oranges. He eats every bite. 

Classic 13-Layer Lasagna 

He usually only likes lasagna when made with noodles, cheese, meat, and smooth tomato sauce. He doesn’t enjoy chunks of veggies.

I didn’t know if he would be into this version, but he surprised both of us by eating every bite and said he would happily eat it again. 

Plant-Powered Italian Sausage 

As long as there was a batch of this in the fridge, he ate it on anything.  

Burrito bar 

Look, I may batch cook our meal plans and recipes on the weekends, but I’m not down to cook much during the week. I keep shit as simple as possible, so I laid out a burrito bar on a busy weeknight and everyone made their own burritos. 

What my burrito bar included 

• Oil-free refried beans from a can, heated up 
• Rice from batching day, heated up 
• Chopped up lettuce (this was already washed and ready to go since I do this first thing when I get home from the store) 
• Hatch green chili sauce from a can, heated up 
• Slaw I whipped up in five minutes 
• Guacamole that came together before the beans were even hot 
• Hot sauce 
• Tortillas

BAM, dinner is served! 

Time well spent

For someone who usually eats burgers and pizza, this was progress! If he didn’t like what I made, no problem! He would order take-out or figure something else out. That’s one of the beautiful things about being an adult: we get to let other adults take care of themselves if they don’t like what we offer. In the end, what always matters most is spending time and connecting with him, so that’s what I focused on.

I hope you have an excellent day, my friend. Love up on that beautiful body of yours and don’t forget to cook some yummy plants so you can tap into that plant magic. Need some help meal planning? We got you.

Xo
Molly