The veggie in the photo is a Tromboncino which is Italian for little trumpet. It is a variety of zucchini which a friend turned up with the other night at our yoga class, she had grown it – what a clever lady. This got me to thinking a little bit more about the varieties of veg we eat, how many new varieties there are to try and that, generally speaking, we could all do with a few more veggies in our diets.
All week I have heard the word “Flexitarian” being banded around social media and online. Whats this all about ?
Well my understanding is that the “Flexitarian” is someone who has spells of being veggie with the odd dip back into eating a meat-driven diet. I have never heard this term before but actually I think that is what I tend to do. It does not seem to be about giving up meat entirely but when you do eat meat, choose the best quality you can afford, that has been raised humanely and if possible is organic, if the pennies lend to it. If nothing else, the Horse Meat debacle has shown that nowadays we are often not aware of where our meat is coming from – something to think about when you go shopping at the weekend.
I am always in awe of my veggie friends who just “get” how to cook such a huge array of vegetables. All those stunning, seasonal colours, cooked in inventive ways, to add texture without loosing flavour – I don’t know about you but I tend to chuck everything in my steamer and cross my fingers, sound familiar ?
Well, in order to reduce our family meat intake, embrace all colours of the rainbow on our plates and thereby striving to reach those dizzy heights of optimum nutrition, I thought I would try cooking vegetarian dishes for the week and see how it goes. I will post a few of my more successful recipes and I hope that you will feel inspired to “go veggie” in some small way this weekend too.
P.S. Let me know how you get on and what sort of recipes you feel you would like help with and I will give you my take on it all.