It’s National Vegetarian Week! A lot of people still have a bit of a negative perception of what a vegetarian diet is, and although during the 20 plus years that I’ve been a vegetarian, people’s views have changed, I think there’s still a long way to go to win people over. It’s not all tofu and lentils, though those are some of my favourite things!

People think it’ll be a struggle to eat a vegetarian diet, even for one day a week. It really isn’t hard. I think people should give it a try, we’ve all got to do our bit for the environment and eating less meat is an easy way to do it.

So, will you miss the meat in your recipes? I don’t think so. OK, I haven’t eaten meat for years but I cook vegetarian meals for my husband and for plenty of my friends who eat meat and they don’t complain, not to my face anyway!

It doesn’t have to be complicated. I started to think about how easy it is to switch out meat in most recipes and use a vegetarian alternative. There’s so many vegetarian and even vegan meat fee products available now that you can make yourself a dish that you’d usually use meat for, like a curry or a chilli, instead of adding meat, add something like Quorn. It’s quicker to cook and will still take on the delicious flavours you add into your sauce like a piece of meat would. If you want to try something a bit different that uses Quorn have a go at my easy recipe for Chorizo and Butterbean Stew.

Things like National Vegetarian Week, Vegetarian Society and Meat Free Monday are great ways to inform, inspire and educate people, we just need to let people know they’re there. So with plenty of resources available for recipe ideas and for information on nutrition, you really don’t have an excuse! Check out some vegetarian recipes and go for it, even for one day a week, you can do it!