Want to go half veggie

MrsRogers

Lotus-eater wrote: »

You've almost got it right, just I'm not a she, I'm the other one.

OOOPPPSSS:o:p

mmmsnow

I've been doing this for a few months now. The hard part was getting the OH on board.

We use meat free mince in bolognese (2x 750g bags for £3 in Asda) to save both calories and money. This works well and makes an easy cheap yet filling meal.

I also make meat free burgers, which I have adapted from the "Feed your family for £100 a month" website. I make 16 at a time: shape them (I have a burger press, which is great), put wax paper between them and freeze them. They can be grilled from frozen. The main change I made to the recipe was to substitute a couple of eggs for the 90ml (!) of vegetable oil required to bind the mixture. While the oil is cheaper, the eggs are healthier

I've been making lots of curries, some more successfully than others. I'm a proficient cook but I find a lot of the vegetarian curry recipes are bland. I like this one:

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/841/baingan-bharta--aubergine-curry-.aspx

I also found a royal korma recipe (for slow cookers) in a book, which uses cauliflower and parsnip instead of meat. If anyone wants it, I can look it out.

Another meat free recipe I found tasty:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4382/veggie-shepherds-pie-with-sweet-potato-mash

Although I used normal potato instead of sweet, which cuts down the price (and tastes better, IMO). The filling can be frozen in portions.

We've cut down our food bill down by £15 a week by eating vegetarian meals half the time and now my husband is a bit of a convert (before this, he wouldn't touch aubergine!).

Also, I forgot to mention my OH has lost 12lbs in the last month on this regime .

Finefoot

lostinrates wrote: »

I love the sound of your kitchen.

Thanks, thats only a few days. If I dont cook from scratch each day, I also save time- which I can use for making bread, flapjacks, dog biscuits....

redlady_1

I am looking at eating more veggie meals and have just bought a book called Plenty. There are some scrummy recipes in there I can tell you

mmmsnow

redlady_1 wrote: »

I am looking at eating more veggie meals and have just bought a book called Plenty. There are some scrummy recipes in there I can tell you

I tried a Two Potato Vindaloo recipe by the author of that book and it was tasteless. I would recommend finding vegetarian recipes by chefs who also eat meat because I'm convinced that my veggie and vegan friends have no palate. Most of their food is completely bland.

ceridwen

mmmsnow wrote: »

I tried a Two Potato Vindaloo recipe by the author of that book and it was tasteless. I would recommend finding vegetarian recipes by chefs who also eat meat because I'm convinced that my veggie and vegan friends have no palate. Most of their food is completely bland.

I wouldnt necessarily concur with that - one does have to be a bit more careful about flavourings, but some of the more modern vegetarian cookbooks are more flavourful.

The divide seems to come somewhere in the 1980s. I have veggie cookbooks from the 1960s and 1970s - these are the ones I use if I am looking for particularly cheap/simple recipes - few ingredients and no dear ones - but not a lot of flavourings either. Certainly my 1960s one only uses a very very limited range of flavourings - tomato puree, marmite, dried mixed herbs, curry powder and thats it. The 1970s ones get better.

For interesting, flavourful food - then the majority of ones produced in the last 20 years or so give food thats just as interesting and flavourful as a "meaty" diet.

This is the difference between the earliest vegetarians - as people becoming vegetarians years back were likely to be so driven by moral reasons that as long as food was vegetarian and healthy they wouldnt be overly concerned with whether it tasted good/was presented attractively/etc. In latter years - well British food has become more interesting for all of us on the one hand (and veggies have wanted to keep up with that) and many more recent vegetarians have become so for reasons other than moral ones (eg health or financial considerations) - so are much more concerned with food still being tasty. So - its not so much a case of "choose books by authors who arent vegetarian themselves" - though that approach has validity - as bear in mind the era they have been writing books in. "Earlier" vegetarian authors were writing for people who put principles first and taste way down the list and wanted things "simple" first and foremost by and large....different audience to some extent and slanted accordingly.

Moral = look for veggie cookbooks that have been produced by younger authors/ones who have only started producing books in the last 20 years if taste is a high priority.

VfM4meplse

lostinrates wrote: »

think middle eastern food...having harvested an excess of courgette to day I'm looking forward to our favourite middle eastern courgette dish, and I'm willing our aubergines by going out and chanting ''The Iman fainted'' at them so they can aspire to fulfil that destiny.

Nothing too greasy I hope? Plse PM the recipes if you can, can't wait for the courgette harvest next month.

Lotus-eater

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Nothing too greasy I hope? Plse PM the recipes if you can, can't wait for the courgette harvest next month.

I hope you aren't serious about waiting till next month for courgettes? You need to start them off a bit earlier next year.

[Deleted User]

Racheldevon wrote: »

I'd keep in mind as someone else mentioned above that the quorn/meat substitute stuff is heavily processed food, and there's lots of cheaper meals you can make that still have the right balance of nutrients. Have a look at the good food website for ideas (bbcgoodfood.com), there's also a good starting out vegetarian cookbook by Good House Keeping - it's a step by step vegetarian cookbook.

I can also recommened the GH cookbook. I have been a vegi for over 28 years and still find this cookbook useful and there are some really nice recipes in it too.

I use very little alternative soya products. I think they are horrible and too processed. Also, when I first turned vegi they didn't even exist so I learnt to cook without. I find Italian food has a lot of meatless recipies (think spinach and ricotta cannelloni) so maybe look at cooking more Italian recipies?

Justamum

mmmsnow wrote: »

I'm convinced that my veggie and vegan friends have no palate. Most of their food is completely bland.

I think it's the complete opposite actually. When you become veg*n your palate adjusts to being able to taste more subtle tastes. I think it's the meat eaters who have no palate, hence the need for strong tastes before they can actually taste anything!