Tips for a recently lapsed vegetarian please!

[hazelnutlatte]

I've been veggie since I was a teenager, have started to eat fish in the last couple of years, but have now decided to start eating meat. The problem is that I've never learned to cook it so am feeling a bit clueless, I'm also finding it hard to think of things I might want to cook. If you eat meat, what's an easy weekday dinner? What's a nice meal for the weekend, other than a Sunday roast? Dishes that a toddler would enjoy too would be a bonus.
Also, if someone could point me to a website that explains how to cook meat well that would be fab. Dp does eat meat but has rarely cooked it, as he has always eaten veggie at home with me, so we are both clueless really.
So far, I've done roast chicken, chicken casserole and chicken curry - so could do with trying something other than chicken! I'm a bit scared of trying other meats tbh but know I need to get over it. I'm not sure I can bring myself to eat mince just yet though, I'll build up to that over time I think!
Finally, is it worth me going to a butcher rather than the supermarket? I only want to buy free range meat but its really really expensive! I think we will probably only eat meat once a week or so so that we can afford it, is it usually cheaper at a butchers?

Delia always has great timing for any meat, just google delia (name of dish) recipe, always a good guidance.

We are having chicken wraps and major salad, caramelise onions, add red ,yellow,green,peppers,fine chopped celery, fry sliced chicken off (nut oil) until all the pink has gone, , add sliced green beans, add a sauce (I do a fucky mexican style one),divided take out a portion for anyone who does not like spice, then add spice to the rest, simmer away until needed.

little bowls each, pile of wraps(heated and flipped in dry frying pan) pile of salad, sour cream, children love building their own.

is turkey mince plausible? We do amazing turkey enchiladas with turkey mince, chopped peppers, onions fried then mixed through with homemade pesto wrapped into tortilla wraps then topped with a tomato sauce and optional cheese and baked in the oven.

The BBC Good Food website has lots of information on cooking meat, and a wide range of recipes too. You could also look at the Sainsburys website, they have meal planners, shopping lists etc as well as cheap to make recipes.

Supermarkets have lots of information available about the source of their food, often down to an individual producer. I think for a small independent butcher this might be expensive to replicate. Have you thought of shopping at local farmer's markets? This might be a good place to find independent suppliers.

If you've not eaten meat for a while, do try a bacon sandwich, especially on a wet miserable day!!

Oh the infinite google cookbook is your friend

As an ex veggie (8yrs) I would like to recommend

Slowcooked lamb breast a l reluctant house dad

Heston blumenthal roast lamb receipe,

Soup made with a ham hough

Duuuuuuuuuck mmmmmmm duck *slobber emoticon!

Lamb neck into kebabs is very nice and very easy (and very expensive now unfortunately). Cut meat into chunks, and if you have time, marinade it (i.e. put something acid and/or flavourful in a bowl and put the meat into it for anything from a few minutes to overnight - wine, lemon juice, soy sauce etc) and then thread the chunks onto skewers interleaved with chunks of red pepper, mushroom, onion, bay leaves and/or whatever you like. Grill for a while, pouring over the marinade as you go and turning frequently, and keep prodding until everything looks cooked - somewhere around 15 - 30 mins?

Stock makes any soup better. Save bones as you prepare the meal, put them all in a large pan, add any veg peelings such as carrot and a sprig of any available herb if liked, cover all with water, bring to boil and simmer for 2 hours or so. Will freeze or keep in fridge for a while.

Quote the chicken wraps idea is a good one, we have a similar veggie version sometimes so that should be easy.
Sharond I could try turkey mince, love enchiladas anyway. The thing that puts me off mince is that it comes from loads of different animals all mixed together - that would be the same for any mince I suppose, but I do need to get over it and for some reason turkey mince sounds less off putting than beef.

Allalonenow do you think the supermarkets are a better bet than a butchers then? There is a local formers market so I'll check that out too. I've yet to try a bacon butty - might do so this weekend!

Herrenaharridan are you glad you gave up on being veggie? I'm still feeling wobbly about the decision. Do you eat meat lots now or just occasionally?

Joan you make stock sound really simple, it would never have crossed my mind to do that even though I make soup loads.
Apologies for multiple posts, on ipad so can't read your posts whilst replying.
I made beef stew last night - cooked according to a Jamie Oliver recipe, it was a bit of a disaster, when it came out of the oven it was all dried up! The recipe said stewing steak, I bought braising beef - is that the same thing? I think the real problem with the dish was that the oven was too hot and I didn't have a proper casserole dish with a lid so I just covered a dish with tinfoil and hoped for the best. I'm normally quite a good cook but not used to cooking anything slowly for a long time - I really should have asked mumsnet before I attempted that one!

I'm another lapsed veggie! I find we eat a lot of chicken (can get a local free range one at the farm shop), which I will roast, then use leftovers for a chicken pie or curry, then use the carcass for stock for lunchtime soup for me.

I didn't like lamb when I ate meat but now I do, which is odd. Specially chops or slow roasted. Or the Shwarma from the Jerusalem book.

I find we only eat very good quality meat once or twice a week though.

I don't think our stock is authentic, but I didn't make it for years because all the recipes sound so complicated, and tbh even stock like ours improves things so much I'm cross about all those wasted carcasses.

I think you're right about what went wrong with the casserole. I guess next time if you don't have a lid, add a bit more liquid and check on it half way through.

I consider myself a reformed vegetarian rather than a lapsed one. I feel 10X better health-wise since starting to eat meat.

I'm still quite fussy about the sort of meat I eat. I prefer free range if at all possible, and the best quality I can afford. I won't eat anything that is "disguised" - so mince (unless minced at home), sausages, reformed chicken, etc. I don't want to be eating noses, etc.

I prefer to eat meat less often and better quality than have it every day.

Mr Euro does pretty much all the cooking but the sorts of things we eat at home are:
boeuf bourginon
ham and pea risotto (can add other veg)
steak (occasionally!)
chicken curry
thai chicken curry
bacon and eggs for brunch
ham and pea soup
bacon and bean soup

I do love a steak too. Actually it was a guinea fowl that broke me... ::goes off to find the naice ham::

Nope no guilt,

I first started eating meat again while very poor and skipping marks and Spencer's. it seemed worse to me to breed, raise and slaughters these animals for food and the just chuck it in the bin. So I ate one of the 30 packets of top quality smoked salmon we had skipped and it was AMAZING

Now when I buy meat I either get it massively reduced or free range/ organic.
I cannot afford to eat organic meat with every meal ergo I will have something else.
I first tries organic chicken because it was reduced to about the same a free range. It tastes better than any chicken I had ever eaten at that point.

Breakfast is always meat free bar a very rare fry up
Lunch is meat free unless its leftovers
Tea will usually have meat in but not always.

I tend to find it works out cheaper to buy big lumps of meat and cut them down and freeze them in portion sizes.

It's just me and dd so although an organic chicken costs £12 it will do

Roast chicken (legs)

Chicken in white sauce OR wraps

chicken pasta salad (great for lunches)

Chicken pie (using left over gravy + veg from roast) bunged in freezer

Stock for soup

So 5 meals for £12 for the meat is not so bad.

Pork loin often comes in big lumps and works out very cheaply cut up and spread out

You probably want to start with 'what does properly cooked look like' for different meats. For example, this book, or this one.

And remember the rule: everything is better with bacon

Spag bol? Could use penne pasta if easier for toddler that's easy because as long as you fry mince until it changes to brown and then by the time you've added tomatoes etc and simmered a bit it's cooked anyway

A really easy pasta sauce with (a bit of meat) is to fry chopped bacon or pancetta until crispy, then stir in creme fraiche and grated cheddar until it melts into a sauce. Sometimes I add chopped courgette or put in some spring onions. You could use chicken in small pieces too
I wasn't a fab cook and I was veggie for a long time. Two things that helped was a meat probe thermometer and jamie Oliver ministry of food

Fish I'm not great with but sometimes I get a fillet of any white fish, put it in a little tin foil parcel with lemon juice and some herbs and cook it in the oven until its flakey

Recommend buying fresh (not frozen) meat in bulk from a farm shop if you have a reasonably sized freezer. Ask around for recommendations in your area. The farm shop I go to is 40mins drive away but worth it. I go every 5-6 weeks or so, was there at the weekend and got (for dh, ds(9) and me):

£25 for box of 24 very large boneless/skinless chicken breasts (8 family meals and sandwiches/pizza topping etc with left overs)
£5 for 4lb Lorne (Scottish) sausage (23 slices)
£13 for 4lb of pork links (~9 family meals)
£7 for 4lb of mince (5 family meals)
£12.50 for 4lb of very lean diced rump steak (5 family meals and leftovers for snacks/my lunch at work)
£5 for a huge and very thick Aberdeen Angus sirloin steak on special occasions (I can't eat a whole one); or £2.50 for a generous standard sirloin steak
£12 for 4lb silverside (3 roasts and with left overs for another meal for dh or sandwiches)

All the meat tastes amazing, totally different from the water injected meat from supermarkets. I find it easier to buy and freeze than make special trips to a high street butcher (which I find very expensive).

actually that's a lot of meat its probably more like 9-10 weeks!

£1 a go for chicken breasts wings? Where is this farm shop???

It's in Ayrshire,scotland. I get the 5kg box of chicken breasts and have always got 23-24 breasts.

They do deliver free for orders over £35, but I've never tried that and not sure I like the idea of fresh meat being delivered by courier.

If you do get a delivery you must try Scottish Lorne sausage, its amazing!

Prices on Internet slightly higher than in the shop

Thx for the link