Going Vegetarian

Here’s a thing: if you chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, your life will change.

One change I didn’t expect was that I would decide to go vegetarian.  Mavis is trying to do this too. Not in an obsessive way – if I’m served meat at a friend’s or relative’s house, I’ll eat it (with much enjoyment if my recent experience of a vegetarian diet is anything to go by), but I am trying very hard not to eat meat or its by-products, for environmental reasons.

I started by aiming for the Pescatarian option until a conversation with a passionate ocean conservationist put me off the idea. I am still investigating sustainable fish though and will keep you updated.

The challenge is combining vegetarianism with a Slimming World diet. Oh how sad I feel at the prospect, nay the actuality, of low fat cheese, no butter and low fat mayo.

So far I have had meat free sausages – not bad actually but you can’t live on them,  soya mince chilli, again not bad but it has an unpleasant after taste, and  roast dinner with fake steak, yorkshire pud and vege gravy (with added red wine). Mavis left her fake meat but I thought the roast was my most successful attempt to date.

Tonight I planned vegetarian shepherds pie. Earlier in the week I shoved loads of vegetables into the slow cooker as a base for the shepherds pie. Sadly, I made the mistake of adding potatoes. Potatoes, slow cooked for too long take on a nasty steamy flavour. The spuds were my first mistake. My second was to add soya mince – yes, that with the aftertaste. I flung in some soy sauce and decided against topping it with mash, as it already contained those steamy-tasting potatoes. Instead I topped it with Laughing Cow light triangles and 50% fat cheddar and bunged it in the oven for half an hour.  It was horrible! Actually, the topping was lush but if I was doing it again I’d leave out the slow cooked spuds and the mince, add lentils and top with mash.

Lunch has been soup – every day – with Lo-dough. Pretty sustaining and tasty. Breakfast, scrambled eggs or vege sausages and beans. Delish, and only one syn for two sausages (I had three).

I have never cooked vegetarian, apart from for inconvenient guests (ooh err, I’m one of those now). My go-to recipe for them is Delia’s lentil Moussaka. Why I haven’t done this for myself I have no idea. Note to self: do it.

Reading back through this, I don’t know why I, a keen cook, have entered into this new lifestyle with such lack of imagination. I think it’s because I’m trying to find things Mavis will enjoy. Well, that worked well, didn’t it?

I’m going to persevere though. There must be tasty, low syn, vegetarian meals to be found. I don’t hold out much hope for official Slimming World recipes as my experience of those has been as unimpressive as the above.

Watch this blog for progress reports and recipes. I will succeed, for the benefit of the planet.