Vegetarian menu planning for a meat eating man

My tremendous man likes his food but has us both worried about the minimal number of vegetables or fruit he eats voluntarily.

Most of the meals we have cooked and eaten for the last few years have catered to his tastes (pizzas,roast dinners,rich casseroles and hearty cooked breakfasts) instead of mine which would lean towards including many salads,soups,fish dishes and many meat-free meals.

Because of this reliance of meaty dishes (partly) we have both gained unwanted weight and would like to eat less heavy meals and introduce more vegetarian items to our main evening meals. On thumbing through the vegetarian cookbooks it transpired that there was very little which sounded nice to B. I suggested to him that maybe we/he need to stop thinking in terms of what would TASTE like a good treat to eat but what would be a good treat for our insides to eat.

As well of the health risks associated with eating a long-term diet rich in meat and saturated fats (heart disease and bowel disease mainly I think) we also would like aim to be able to buy a higher quality of meat,locally reared less often than the mass-produced supermarket supplied cuts more frequently. Local,organic meat is without a doubt an expensive commodity but by only eating meat once a week for our main meal we hope to be able to buy a fine bird or joint for our Sunday roast dinner.

Last week I managed to compile and cook a full week’s worth of vegetarian dinners all of which were well received by B and I’m happy to share them with you here:

• Roasted vegetables (red onion,red peppers,courgettes,aubergine,mushrooms) ith grilled haloumi cheese,houmous and raw spinach leaves
• (grated) Courgette and red onion cheese quiche with wholemeal shortcrust pastry and homemade coleslaw
• Vegatable lasagne (with majority of veg being chopped into pretty small pieces but the mushrooms left chunky as an almost-meat substitute)
• Jacket potato with tuna mayonnaise (added finely chopped spring onion,red pepper,celery and sweetcorn kernals)
• Vegetarian grills (Quorn I think) bought from a shop made to be like pretend breaded chicken escalopes served with potato wedges
• Bean stew –the same as our sausage casserole only without the sausages

And when I’m home alone the following options are invariably cooked and eaten as both are my favourites but sadly abhored by Mr B:

• Chick pea dahl (surprisingly delicious tinned option from Morrisons) augmented with spinach,served with boiled rice,natural yoghurt and mango chutney
• Any one of a number of scrumptious risottos (pea,mushroom,courgette,plain old onion) all made with homemade frozen chicken stock (I recognise that this disqualifies it from being classified as vegetarian),white wine and lashings of parmeasan cheese.

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