Recipes please for a No meat Monday

It’s not quite the radical lifestyle change, one might first assume.

With few vices in life, jumping in full hog and giving up on a Saturday morning bacon butty is not likely to happen anytime soon.

But the weekly meal planner has been in need of refreshing for some time and more because there has to be more to food beyond potatoes, rice and pasta right?

For ease and the certainty of a full stomach - it makes sense to serve it with everything and dress around the edges with a few vegetables in the hope of managing three or four of your five, ten a day, wherever we are now.

Fortunately faddy diets and eating have never been an obsession, the family make-up has pretty much allowed for eating however much, any time, without the risk of instant weight gain but suddenly even the ‘lucky’ ones are not immune from the daily eating will kill you.

A head fried with health warnings aplenty, included in the kids’ book bags this week a tome on how to manage their diets so basically goodbye beige plate Wednesday.

We are what we eat but is there anything left that is actually good for you? Oh and just happens to taste nice too?

A good friend before Christmas had tried to sell the benefits of converting this daily meat eater to live my best vegan life for just part of a week.

It’s not impossible - it’s not even that difficult but it’s that immediate image of living off butter beans and sweet potato, which has just never appealed.

That was about to change.

After a day on the slopes last Monday our chalet hosts announced the evening’s dinner would be meat-free.

The horror having survived from 1pm until 8pm on a hot dog - how could one possibly last until morning on butternut squash and courgette?

A knowing glance was shared across the room, other non vegetarian guests felt the tummy rumble, too.

If there was ever a dish to inspire a wannabe cook to be more experimental in the kitchen this was it. But a new approach to the weekly shop is required and I need recipes. The search is on.

Landing back in the office this week an email introduced the beyond burger , which looks, cooks, tastes, even bleeds just like its beef counterpart but with the upsides of being a plant based meal.

Founder of the Halo burger restaurant in Brixton, vegan Ross Forder, has not only helped create a special seasoning for the burger but has created a menu of pure plant based meals.

He predicts in the next five years a tipping point where the benefits and price of plant-based meat alternatives will become more favourable than meat and we’ll be adopting and buying in to the meat-free concept.

It has potential - so from this week we’ll be officially subscribing to No Meat Mondays.

Announcing to the family any further requests for chicken goujons/nuggets at the beginning of the week would be rejected.

“Can we have tomato soup instead then.” Recipe number one sorted.