Going vegetarian to reduce carbon footprint. Can you give me your tastiest veggie recipes?

[lavenderbongo]

Trying to persuade my reluctant husband that he will actually like some veggie recipes. We found a really good replacement for mince, so can make lasagna and spaghetti bolognese. But struggling with other stuff as he’s not keen on vegetables!

Richmond meat free sausages are the best I've found

Halloumi burgers are also a favourite here! A fairly thick slice of Halloumi pan fried both sides, a brioche bun with red pepper humus on the bottom slice and some Mayo on the top. Put the cheese in, top with some salad, delicious!

Thanks 😊 I’m not a fan of Halloumi but will give it a go.

Where's the halloumi flown in from?

Truffle mac n cheese www.gousto.co.uk/cookbook/vegetarian-recipes/easy-truffle-mac-n-cheese
Burgers www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/the-best-vegan-burger/
Chilli fried tofu with egg fried rice www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chillifriedtofuwithe_93035
Cheese and tomato bread pudding recipes.sainsburys.co.uk/recipes/leftovers/cheese-and-tomato-bread-and-butter-pudding
Enchiladas www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/veggie-enchiladas/
Chilli www.bosh.tv/recipes/braised-jackfruit-chilli

mixed pepper fajitas goes down well here.

Also soups.

Omelettes with cheese and asparagus is apersonal favourite.

One of our favourites is Jamie Oliver leek carbonara - delicious!

His veg book is great for easy quick veg meals

This is my favourite vegetarian recipe- it also happenns to be vegan.
Spicy braised tofu.
My OH is a life long cynic of tofu, but he scrapes his plate with this one.

or in text form

www.maangchi.com/recipe/dubu-jorim

chips.

If you want to reduce your carbon footprint go easy on the cheese! There is a myth that being veggie is necessarily better for the planet. When you think about it, cheese is in fact a by product of the beef industry. Watch this..
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000qzyd
Horizon. Feast to Save the Planet. A fun guide to what is and isn't sustainable.
I'm not vegan so not evangelising. Just interested in people's perceptions of what's good and what's not.

cookieandkate.com/vegetarian-chili-recipe/

This is really nice and my meat loving husband is a big fan. It's a big portion and you can do many things with it. We usually eat it with bread or rice on day 1, then day 2 on a baked potato or chips, with sour cream and cheese.

I’ve made a veggie tagine for years, it’s tasty and you can amend it to whatever veg you want. And very simple to make.

We use quorum chunks a lot to make curries etc

Avoid soy, and almond milk if you are thinking about ecological impact. Amazon rainforest and bees respectively

Bean chilli, fajitas with quorn , cauliflower & chick pea wraps, veggie burger & chips

Where's the halloumi flown in from?

Doesn’t really matter - the benefit of giving up meat dwarfs the environmental cost of food miles. Transport is a much, much smaller proportion of the carbon footprint of food than most people realise: ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

OP, some veggie recipe books I very strongly recommend:

Ottolenghi - Flavour
Meera Sodha - Fresh India
(Can’t remember) - The Green Roasting Tin

Enjoy!

The key to great veggie cooking for me is knowing your spices so you can really pack it full of flavour. If you like curries I'd get a Madhur Jaffrey book and dive in - plenty of veggie stuff there.

This is one of my favourite veggie recipes - butternut squash stew with chickpea dumplings khoollect.com/eat-kitchen/recipe/smoky-squash-stew-chickpea-dumplings/

You can also do great things with veggie pies - this one's a bit of effort but worth it www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/celebration_celeriac_and_33665

I'm not actually vegetarian, but I find that the carby comfort of a pie crust or dumplings goes a long way to winning over people who miss meat and don't enjoy vegetables for their own sake like your husband.

Another vote for Meera Sodha too, the recipes she comes up with are marvellous - most of the time I never think to myself that it's a vegan recipe as such, it's just fantastic food.

The dairy industry has a massive impact on the environment too - they impregnate cows, then separate the calf and mum (extremely distressing to mum and baby) to get her milk she wanted to feed to her calf, while feeding the calf formula until it’s old enough to be slaughtered for meat. Over and over. I’m a meat eater, but I don’t eat dairy - just pointing it out because people have this weird delusion that dairy is a nice friendly industry.

Thanks All 😊
Just had a look at the Jamie Oliver book, might buy that!
I was not aware of the almond milk problem - I’ll look into that a bit more. I’m in NZ so will see where it for from to get here.
Cheese is a tricky one to avoid. The dairy industry is huge here and I believe it’s the biggest carbon producer in NZ.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing if you're not vegetarian for animal welfare reasons.

It could be that eating a meal with lots of seasonal vegetables plus a small amount of locally produced meat or sustainably caught fish has a low environmental impact. Eg a soup or stew with a small amount of NZ lamb and potatoes, carrots, onions, leeks, peas, pulses or similar?

Plus don't forget that a lot of popular vegetarian products are processed and/or grown intensively and shipped across continents, eg quorn, avocado, quinoa, various plant based milks, so as well has having a higher carbon footprint than you may imagine, sometimes also raise the price for poorer people in the countries that produce them who rely on them as staples or take a lot of water to produce etc etc. Oat milk might be a good alternative to dairy.

You'll probably find that when you start looking into this properly, it's a rabbit hole that produces lots of unexpected answers that are contradictory to what you first thought the solution was.

@scentedgeranium

If you want to reduce your carbon footprint go easy on the cheese! There is a myth that being veggie is necessarily better for the planet. When you think about it, cheese is in fact a by product of the beef industry. Watch this.. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000qzyd Horizon. Feast to Save the Planet. A fun guide to what is and isn't sustainable. I'm not vegan so not evangelising. Just interested in people's perceptions of what's good and what's not.

Please explain how cheese is a by product of the beef industry?

@Veterinari calves are separated from their mothers, causing great emotional stress to both (imagine having your newborn taken off you) over and over and over, the claves are fed formula, and reared for meat. The mummy cow is milked and milked and then inseminated again to ensure she continues to provide humans with cows breast milk. The cycle continues. It’s a cruel industry and a far cry from the comfortable images of old fashioned dairies where calves were allowed to suckle.

[quote Mummywantsaweewee]@Veterinari calves are separated from their mothers, causing great emotional stress to both (imagine having your newborn taken off you) over and over and over, the claves are fed formula, and reared for meat. The mummy cow is milked and milked and then inseminated again to ensure she continues to provide humans with cows breast milk. The cycle continues. It’s a cruel industry and a far cry from the comfortable images of old fashioned dairies where calves were allowed to suckle.[/quote]
You're describing the dairy industry. I'm not disputing the cruelty. I'm disputing the fact that you said cheese is a by product of the beef industry. It isn't. In beef herds, calves are usually mother-raised and the cow's milk is not used for human consumption.

I have actually worked in both

Sorry it was @scentedgeranium that posted originally

@Veterinari my apologies. I thought there was an overlap. Thank you for the correction.
I'll adjust my point to say that dairy has the similar high feed inputs of beef, and of course the same methane outputs which are things the OP seems to be concerned about.