I'm going veggie.

[Bob]

Hubby and I have decided to try a vegetarian lifestyle, well actually to be technical a pescatarian lifestyle. I can't guarantee how long this will last, it could be forever I could be just a couple of months but the aim is we're in it for the long haul.

We've both done the veggie thing before, me in my teens for 3 years and hubby in his early 20's for just over 4 years. I don't know what changed for either us but for the past decade and a bit we've both been back on the carnivorous wagon.

For the past however long we've both been slowly going off stuff, hubby has always hated chicken, I've never been a fan of processed meat, cheap ham, burgers, sausages etc. I hate it when you find a hard bit, think to yourself 'I wonder what that could be' and then the realisation hits that you can genuinely imagine several things that it could have been and then feel a little bit sick.

With the exception of bacon I don't think either of us will miss pork, and lamb has never featured highly on the shopping list. I'd say 2-3 nights a week we don't eat meat anyway so we're starting by not giving up steak 7 nights a week.

But I don't want to live off ratatouille and pasta.

I'm after tips recipes and ways to make the loss of a fair percentage of our diet not feel like a chore.

 

[joshua]

http://www.cookinglight.com/food/top-rated-recipes/best-vegetarian-recipes-00412000076926/

 

[Gramaisc]

You won't be short of advice on here - the Forum has a strong veggie sub-set.....

 

[tek-monkey]

Good luck to you. Not my idea of fun, I love the texture of meat and have never found a veggie alternative to a steak/chop/joint, but I applaud your efforts.

 

[littleme]

Good luck Bob & family, I'm interested to see recipe ideas too - although I don't want to 'give up' meat, maybe just cut out how much meat (especially red meat) we eat

 

[henryscat]

Waterstones have a good selection of cook books and so does Amazon. Also lots of vegan recipes on the interweb. Cooking without meat absolutely unequivocally does not mean boring food or missing out.

 

[John Marwood]

As a bloke I find Hugh Fernly Whittingwotsit a tad annoying but his veggie cookbook is brilliant

 

[hop]

Repressed memories of fagging for him coming back ?

 

[henryscat]

Try this website for recipes - http://www.theppk.com/recipes/

Thie site is Isa Chandra Moskowitz's who has written some excellent cook book, some of the best stuff I've cooked has been from her books.

 

[henryscat]

Forgot to add - another good one is http://fleursvegankitchen.com/

 

[Goldilox]

Hello from a fellow veggie & occasional pescetarian...

My favourite cookbooks are actually ones that do include meat but are easily adapted to vegetarian stuff - things like Madhur Jaffery & The Mexican Kitchen. That said, these are some of my favourite 100% veggie ones.

Be warned, I do love some of that wicker-lampshade-and-wholemeal-flour 1970s veggie food that's so deeply unfashionable at the minute!

Vegetarian Kitchen - Sarah Brown
Real Fast Vegetarian Food - Ursula Ferrigno
Not Just a Load of Old Lentils - Rose Elliot
Cheap & easy - Rose Ellliot

Depending how much Delia you own anyway, her veggie one is a pretty good collection of all her veggie recipes from elsewhere.

 

[flossietoo]

My tip: pre-chop lots of onions and freeze in ice cube trays topped-up with oil. Nearly every vegetarian recipe starts with chopping an onion and you can save loads of time by just chucking a cube in the pan.

* Always cook at least double. Partly because it will be so delicious you will want second helpings but also because vegetarian dishes can be a bit time-consuming to prepare and you want to make life easy.

* It's a whole lot easier than it would have been when you were vegetarian the first time round - lots more products, better awareness, no problem eating out.

Talking of eating out, if you could possibly add an extra voice to gently pointing out that Parmesan is not vegetarian and gelatine isn't ok as a secret pudding ingredient, I would be grateful.

Hope it works out.

 

[Bob]

That's something new learned today - I didn't realise parmesan wasn't vegetarian.

 

[John Marwood]

Wine gums are out too

 

[Gramaisc]

That's something new learned today - I didn't realise parmesan wasn't vegetarian.

If it's legit Parmesan, then it can't be veggie - https://www.vegsoc.org/cheese - a lot of other hard cheeses are veggie these days, but not vegan, of course.

 

[Glam]

Wine gums are out too

So are Trebor extra strong mints.

 

[Goldilox]

On the other hand, 'Basics' range Italian hard cheese is nearly always veggie and a pound a packet less...

 

[flossietoo]

Pizza Express, in the headlines for all the wrong reasons this week, has replaced Parmesan in the preparation of all vegetarian dishes and gives really good information about the suitability of all the cheeses used in its recipes. They also specify that the Worcester Sauce used in their dishes doesn't contain anchovies.

In fairness, the chain is unusually good at giving the facts about all ingredients - I certainly knew about the chicken before the reporters found an excuse for racism this week. They have always stated that the chicken is halal, pre-stunned. I wouldn't eat it, however it had been killed but the majority of their customers are probably not vegetarian!

The Vegetarian Society has produced some cards which you can take into restaurants, with hard-hitting 'amusing' messages about Parmesan. That seems like an excellent way to ensure that your next meal contains bacon fat and hidden pieces of chicken. I prefer to ask if there is any way they can leave it out or choose something else. A lot of chefs don't realise but the message is slowly getting out.

 

[That-Crazy-Rat-Lady]

I've been a veggie for ten years now and it just becomes habit!

I eat a lot of Quorn and Linda McCartney stuff, my other half eats meat so I'm not about to make 2 separate meals for tea!
I make one meal such as bangers and mash - other half has sausages and I have the Linda red onion and rosemary ones (omg yum!)

So I'd say I substitute meat rather than plan my meals around it!

I have a Quorn cookbook which is fantastic - but otherwise I use normal recipes and use pretend stuff instead!

I eat A LOT of cheese - don't know if that's a good think or not but in my house if it doesn't have cheese on it your doing it wrong....

 

[henryscat]

I've been a veggie for ten years now and it just becomes habit!

I eat a lot of Quorn and Linda McCartney stuff, my other half eats meat so I'm not about to make 2 separate meals for tea!
I make one meal such as bangers and mash - other half has sausages and I have the Linda red onion and rosemary ones (omg yum!)

So I'd say I substitute meat rather than plan my meals around it!

I have a Quorn cookbook which is fantastic - but otherwise I use normal recipes and use pretend stuff instead!

I eat A LOT of cheese - don't know if that's a good think or not but in my house if it doesn't have cheese on it your doing it wrong....

Couple of things I would add...

Whether you go vegan or veggie, it becomes habit and both are easy. I think there's a lot of perception to the contrary sometimes.

In terms of substituting meat, it is obviously important to ensure balance and sufficient protein, but it is worth remembering that most meat eaters over consume protein by quite a way - and too much protein is bad just as too little can be.

Cheese - just commenting on the health aspect, is not particularly good for you. Same goes for milk. Again, from a health point of view, people perceive dairy as good usually based on calcium. This doesn't bear out in the facts as we can easily get all the calcium we need from other sources and dairy counter intuitively has a negative effect by leaching calcium from your body as it is acidic (so your body takes calcium out of bone to deal with it) - which is why countries with the highest dairy consumption have the highest rates of osteoporosis.