Going vegetarian for a month

[aspi]

Feedlot meat does use more energy per calorie but free-range does not. Also, feedlot meat is lower in B12 than natural meat, so you should be taking a supplement.

It's not just about the energy and the carbon footprint (i.e. fuel / electricity). Producing meat is also very wasteful as far as the amount of produced food is concerned. If the land that is used to grow food for animals were used to grow food for humans instead, it could be used to sustain a lot more people. There's obviously some corner cases (like sheep on barren lands that wouldn't do well for planting crops), but overall, meat is very inefficient when it comes to feeding everyone and as such it is a luxury food. While this may not be apparent in our western world, eating meat 5+ times a week is pure luxury if you look at it on a global scale.

That said, I don't think going all vegetarian is the optimal solution either. As with most things in life, balance is important. If you look at the human set of teeth, you'll find that we are omnivores: We neither have the fangs of a true predator, nor the molars of a herbivore. Our teeth are somewhere in the middle. From an evolutionary perspective, the most healthy diet for us is therefore a mixed one: some meat, some fruit, some vegetables. If you deviate from this in either direction, you have to carefully compensate for what you are missing.

Blasphemy! Marmite is the best thing to come out of The UK since the Doctor!
For those who haven't tried it, it tastes like... concentrated soy sauce?

Hm, I wouldn't say that. I absolutely love soy sauce and I've even tasted the crystallized flakes that form in the screw-on cap after a few months once the bottle is open. Marmite however is absolutely inedible in my book - so it's something quite different.

Vegetarian reciepe for October: Pumpkin curry soup
1 pumpkin, 1-1.5kg / 2-3 pounds (I prefer Hokkaido since they are available in small sizes and have edible skin)
1 onion
1 apple
1 carrot
(2-3 potatoes if you like)
1 spoon curry powder
Olive oil (or any other vegetable oil)
Pepper
Salt

1. Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds and soft tissue with a large spoon (you can dry and eat the seeds if you like)
2. Remove the skin of the pumpkin if it isn't edible (and peel potatoes)
3. Cut the pumpkin, apple, carrot and potatoes into thumb-sized pieces
4. Cut the onion and sauté in oil for a few minutes until they start to brown
5. Add pumpin, apple, carrot and potato pieces as well as the spieces and fill up with water so the topmost pieces are about halfway covered
6. Boil for about 20 minutes, stir every 5 minutes
7. Mash with a potato masher or put it in a blender

If you didn't use to much water, it will be very creamy. You can add some sour cream or crème fraîche if you like. Even if you buy a small pumpkin, this should be plenty for 3-4 days for one person, but putting it in the fridge is no problem - the longest I've kept it in the fridge so far was 6 days and it didn't spoil.

[SiuiS]

It's not just about the energy and the carbon footprint (i.e. fuel / electricity). Producing meat is also very wasteful as far as the amount of produced food is concerned. If the land that is used to grow food for animals were used to grow food for humans instead, it could be used to sustain a lot more people.

We are likely past the point where that in any way matters. We already produce enough edibles annually to end world hunger; we just don't produce enough money to get the good to the entire world without it spoiling first.

You don't want to just look at meat versus land. How much does the meat sell for? Would a locale which switched from raising livestock to growing crops get more net yield, or would it make more by growing meat, selling it, and just buying crops from elsewhere? That last is really interesting to me as I've never seen the problem broken down into districts that way. Hmm...

[Joran]

It's not just about the energy and the carbon footprint (i.e. fuel / electricity). Producing meat is also very wasteful as far as the amount of produced food is concerned. If the land that is used to grow food for animals were used to grow food for humans instead, it could be used to sustain a lot more people.

A large portion of the nitrogen that goes into the Chesapeake Bay and causes the big algae blooms and dead zones are caused by the chicken farms and the nitrogen rich waste that they create.

In addition, a lot of the fish and seafood we eat aren't caught or farmed sustainably. Farmed salmon consumes much more in terms of other fish, which either themselves need to be farmed or caught. Also, some of the practices of these farms are atrocious.

[Wardog]

I'm not a vegetarian, but I generally eat more vegetarian food than non-vegetarian.

Vegetable stir-fries are one of the things I make a lot of. Vegetable curries and chillies as well.

I've also recently decided that I generally prefer vegetarian pizzas to non-vegetarian ones. (I used to generally think "vegetarian pizza - what's the point of that?", but now I think they're often nicer).

[thorgrim29]

Then you haven't had thin crust pizza with chorizo and mozzarela di buffala

[shawnhcorey]

It's not just about the energy and the carbon footprint (i.e. fuel / electricity). Producing meat is also very wasteful as far as the amount of produced food is concerned. If the land that is used to grow food for animals were used to grow food for humans instead, it could be used to sustain a lot more people.

Even if the land is used to grow human food, most of the crop would be inedible by human but edible but animals.

We are likely past the point where that in any way matters. We already produce enough edibles annually to end world hunger; we just don't produce enough money to get the good to the entire world without it spoiling first.

We have had enough food and money since WW2 to feed the entire world. We just don't have the political will.

At the moment, feedlot and barn raised meat is cheaper than free range because energy prices are lower than the mortgage on the land. But that's likely to change in the near future since we're pass peak oil and energy price are going to go nowhere but up.

[-Sentinel-]

So many ideas! I need to gather all those recipes in a Word file for ease of consultation...

Might be time to halve your recipes down to about 4 meals per batch, then. And to look into 1-2 meal recipes.

As I said though, I can't cook every day. Better to make larger recipes that keep longer or can be frozen.

I like filling and baking vegetables. Bell peppers, tomatoes, zuchini, eggplant, anything you can hollow out. Take, as prefered: breadcrumbs, ground nuts (hazelnuts work well), various (boiled) grains, rice. Add some eggs and shredded cheese so it holds together into a mass. Spice to taste, olives are also nice. Fill into hollowed-out vegetables. Bake in oven.

I heard about that, but I've never tried it before. I'll give it a shot. (Eggs are still okay as long as they don't form the basis of the recipe.)

And no, meatless is not healthier. Saturated fats do not cause any health problems. Nitrates do not cause health problems. Everything you read about the ill effects of meat is myth and propaganda.

Well, meat does contain more fats and salt than veggies. Of course the body needs fats and salt, and a bit of meat isn't harmful, but most people can stand to reduce their meat consumption.

And I don't know about the "propaganda" thing. Not sure who stands to gain from the International Vegan Conspiracy, aside from veggie farmers.

Adding chopped hazelnuts to stuff like lasagna helps with recreating the texture of minced meat.

Good idea! Nice source of protein, too.

We already produce enough edibles annually to end world hunger; we just don't produce enough money to get the good to the entire world without it spoiling first.

That's a good point. The problem isn't one of quantity, but one of logistics. In developed countries, something like a third of our food goes to waste.


Anyway, thanks a whole lot, everyone! If you have more advice, keep it coming.

Especially if it helps me get rid of the 10 pounds of carrots I just bought.

[BannedInSchool]

What's the thoughts on insects? Just curious.

[Crow]

The carbon and water footprints per calorie are quite a bit higher for meat than plants. Beef, in particular, is by far the worst of all meats when it comes to environmental impact. Even if you don't go full vegetarian, you can significantly reduce your impact on the environment by sticking with poultry and fish.

Spoiler

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[Zrak]

Feedlot meat does use more energy per calorie but free-range does not. Also, feedlot meat is lower in B12 than natural meat, so you should be taking a supplement.

I'm pretty sure it still does, do you recall where you saw that it doesn't? Given that a steer will consume far more calories than it provides, free range or feedlot, my inclination would be to believe that it's still the case, but I could be mistaken. Generally, the most efficient set-up is to grow food for people with most of the land and feed a limited number of animals the parts edible to them but inedible to humans, and even then I was under the impression that eggs and dairy are more efficient than meat; of course, there are exceptions, since some land has a much harder time producing people food than, say, sheep food. I'm going off memory from several years ago and what the guy who ran the farm I used to work on said. Obviously, things could have changed since I looked into it, he could be wrong, or I could even be misremembering some specifics.

And no, meatless is not healthier. Saturated fats do not cause any health problems. Nitrates do not cause health problems. Everything you read about the ill effects of meat is myth and propaganda.

Cholesterol, an insidious invention of the vegan cabals.

You don't want to just look at meat versus land. How much does the meat sell for? Would a locale which switched from raising livestock to growing crops get more net yield, or would it make more by growing meat, selling it, and just buying crops from elsewhere? That last is really interesting to me as I've never seen the problem broken down into districts that way. Hmm...

I think it's because this is the kind of thing that's almost impossible to discern even at a district-by-district level, since things like marketing and technique hugely influence the price of goods. My friend used to work on a farm that sold bacon for seventy dollars a pound. That's pretty hard to top with any crop, since most of the things even close to comparable in price are similarly difficult to grow. Of course, it's not like Tennessee is the world capital of bourgie bacon and all the local organic bacon suddenly costs seventy bucks a pound when you cross the state line and the poor are forced to sneak over into North Carolina to buy their bacon; through some manner of marketing wizardy or dark pacts with the eldritch powers of Conspicuous Consumption, that one farm managed to sell bacon for like fifteen times what even kind-of-expensive organic bacon costs. Things like that make it pretty difficult to produce a reliable accounting.

[shawnhcorey]

Cholesterol, an insidious invention of the vegan cabals.

Cholesterol is a protein that transports fat through your blood. High-density lipoprotein (HDL) transport fat from your cells to your liver. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) transport it from your liver to your cells. The amount of cholesterol you eat has no bearing on the amount in your blood.

And yes, it's called propaganda when the US FDA states that saturated fat is bad for you and you should replace it with trans-fat.

[TheThan]

I think a lot of people are neglecting one crucial issue.
Supply and demand
To many people meat tastes good, and most people like to eat things that taste good. Therefore there is a huge demand for meat. Farmers can try to meet that demand (har har) by growing meat and selling it, for a lot of profit. There’s clearly a lot of money to be made here, so yeah.

Anyway
Looking through my cook book, most of my main dishes contain meat. But I found one that would work with a little modifying.

Spoiler: modified pork fried rice

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Fried rice
½ cup Celery
½ cup carrots
1 cup diced and cooked pork
¼ cup green onion
2 eggs
2 ½ precooked (and cooled ) rice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon garlic
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar

Directions
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in wok; add carrot and stir fry. Scramble eggs in same pan separating eggs. Add pork, stir fry until hot. Add rice, breaking up rice as you put it in wok, sir fry 2 minutes. Add soy sauce, garlic, sugar, and salt. Add celery and onion and stir fry 2 minutes

Modifications:
You can probably substitute tofu for the pork, I have no idea how to actually use tofu so you’ll have to find that info somewhere else. Also I don’t think this calls for enough soy sauce, I usually eyeball it. I dunno how you feel about the eggs, you can probably omit them.

[Asta Kask]

Cholesterol is a protein that transports fat through your blood. High-density lipoprotein (HDL) transport fat from your cells to your liver. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) transport it from your liver to your cells. The amount of cholesterol you eat has no bearing on the amount in your blood.

And yes, it's called propaganda when the US FDA states that saturated fat is bad for you and you should replace it with trans-fat.

Cholesterol is not a protein, it's a lipid. I

[Coidzor]

Blasphemy! Marmite is the best thing to come out of The UK since the Doctor!

For those who haven't tried it, it tastes like... concentrated soy sauce? With a sort of yeasty, beer-like aroma on top? That may not make it sound super appetizing, but I love it. I'll eat it just spread on bread with butter, but I especially like cooking with it. A spoonful in chili or gravy really adds a powerful savory note. It's incredibly high in glutamates, which are responsible for the taste known as savory or umami or "meaty." Like a little MSG bomb, but good for you.

Pretty sure Scotch, Irish Whiskey, cider, and beer all have marmite beat by a pretty wide margin. Also those wine gummies. Also Cadbury cream eggs. Also, Cadbury.

Honestly I think haggis has it beat. Shepherd's and Cottager's Pies certainly do. I think marmite may beat out blood sausage though.

Oh, and those little adorable homemade hand-pies that are from Wales or Cornwall and then spread to the rest of the UK. Those are amazing.

Oh, speaking of hand-held pastry! Samosas are an amazingly delicious pastry of Indian origin that's typically savory and most recipes of them are vegetarian, though they're also quite good with meat as well, especially lamb.

And then going a bit further west, if you can learn to work with phyllo, then Spanakopita is amazing. Requires liking feta cheese and spinach to some extent, though.

[Madcrafter]

At the moment, feedlot and barn raised meat is cheaper than free range because energy prices are lower than the mortgage on the land. But that's likely to change in the near future since we're pass peak oil and energy price are going to go nowhere but up.

Not necessarily true. Albertan oil companies are suddenly having to find ways to eke more oil out of their claims, not because they're running out, but because there is so much of it that the tumbling price has made their current methods too expensive.

Anyways, I found that casserole, I'll just copy from the book:

Spoiler: From Lighthearted Everyday Cooking

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This is one of the fastest family dinner dishes I know how to make, but even better than that, everyone loves it. Packed with nutrients, high in fibre yet low in fat, canned beans and lentils are quick to prepare. This dish can be seasoned in any number of ways: instead of rosemary you can add either hot pepper flakes, chili, curry or oregano to taste.

1tbsp	15mL	vegetable oil
1		large onion, chopped
1		can (19oz/540ml) kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1		can lentils, drained
1		can tomatoes, drained
1/2 tsp		dried rosemary or thyme
		Pepper
1 1/2 cups		shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese

Hard method:
In flameproof casserole, heat oil over medium heat; cook onion and celery until onion is softened.
Add beans, lentils, tomotoes, rosemary, and pepper to taste; stir and break up tomatoes with back of spoon. Bring to simmer.
Sprinkle with cheese; broil until cheese melts.

Fast method:
In microwaveable casserole, combine oil, onion and celery; cover and cook at High power for 3 to 4 minutes or until onion is softened. Add beans, lentils, tomatoes (break up with back of spoon), rosemary and pepper to taste; cover and microwave at High power for 5 minutes or until heated through. Sprinkle with cheese and microwave until cheese melts and is bubbly.

Easy 10 minutes in the microwave, tastes excellent. I eat it just on a plate without any cheese, but I know my sister likes to have it in a soft tortilla with, like a burrito.

[Ifni]

For when you need proof vegetarian food need not be healthy These are both taken from the New Best Recipe cookbook.

Brussels Sprouts Braised In Cream:
(I've never actually made this one but my friend, who doesn't normally like Brussels Sprouts, raves about this version)
Take 1 pound Brussels sprouts, trim the stem ends with a knife and remove discolored leaves. Combine with 1 cup heavy cream and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover and simmer, shaking the pan occasionally to redistribute the sprouts, for 10-12 minutes. Season with nutmeg and pepper to taste.

Twice-Baked Potatoes: (a very cheesy dish)
Take 4 medium russet potatoes. Scrub, dry and rub lightly with vegetable oil. Bake them in the oven at 400 degrees for 1 hour. Let them cool, then slice them in half so the long, blunt sides can rest on a work surface. Use a small spoon to scoop the flesh from each half into a medium bowl, leaving 1/8 to 1/4 inch of the flesh in each shell. Put the shells back on your baking sheet and return them to the oven for about 10 minutes, until they're dry and slightly crisped. Mash the potato flesh with a fork until it's smooth, and stir in 4 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup buttermilk (you can use yoghurt if you don't have buttermilk, or more sour cream), 2 tbsp unsalted butter, and 3 medium scallions sliced thin.
Then take the crisped shells back out of the oven, scoop the mashed-potato mixture back into them, turn the oven up to broil, and put them back in the oven for 10-15 minutes until they're crisp on top.

The cookbook suggests variations including chipotle chilis and onion (saute finely chopped onion, add onion + minced chipotle chilis + fresh cilantro to the filling of the potatoes), blue cheese and thyme (swap crumbled blue cheese for the cheddar and 1 tsp finely minced fresh thyme for the scallions), pesto (omit the butter, reduce the buttermilk to 1/4 cup, add 1/4 cup pesto to the filling), and peas + Indian spices (saute finely chopped onion; add 1 tsp finely grated ginger, 3 minced garlic cloves, 1 tsp each ground cumin and coriander, 1/4 tsp each ground cinnamon, ground turmeric and ground cloves, cook for ~30 seconds; stir in 1 cup thawed frozen peas off the heat; add resulting spices-and-peas mixture to the filling instead of the cheese and butter). I think the last option will give you something like samosas, albeit without the pastry wrapping.

My first idea for "what to do with lots of carrots" involves carrot cake, but I'll think about it

[-Sentinel-]

My first idea for "what to do with lots of carrots" involves carrot cake, but I'll think about it

Hey, desserts are okay too! I'm sure homemade carrot cakes beat store-bought chocolate cookies, health-wise.

What's the thoughts on insects? Just curious.

Depends. Are you talking about my vegetarian month, or is this part of the political digression on meat and the environment?

If the former, that's a no, simply because I want to force myself to experiment with veggies instead of doing variations on the meat theme. If the latter, that's something environmentally-conscious Westerners should definitely look into for the future - we already eat crustaceans, so there's no reason why we shouldn't eat insects, which are arthropods too. This said, I would personally only ever eat insects if they were processed in a way that made them unrecognizable.

---

Not pointing any fingers, but kindly keep pseudoscientific conspiracy theories out of this thread. Pro tip: if it requires the active or passive complicity of hundreds of scientists and does not actually benefit anyone in any meaningful way, it's probably bull****.


@ Crow: Thank you for your valuable contribution to the thread. A picture is worth a thousand words, and I think your picture has indeed given us great insight into the quality of your arguments.

[byzantineblue]

Are eggs okay? You can do delicious things with eggs. And egg whites. Egg whites are also heart-healthy!

[Ifni]

Carrot cake!

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I haven't actually tried this recipe, but it comes from a cookbook that's worked very well for me with other things, and they describe a fairly extensive testing process.

Ingredients:
-2.5 cups (12.5 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
-1.25 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp baking soda
-1.25 tsp ground cinnamon
-0.5 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
-1/8 tsp ground cloves
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 pound carrots (6 to 7 medium), peeled
-1.5 cups (10.5 oz) granulated sugar
-1/2 cup packed (3.5 oz) light brown sugar
-4 large eggs
-1.5 cups safflower, canola or vegetable oil

Cream cheese frosting:
-8 oz cream cheese, softened
-5 tbsp unsalted butter
-1 tbsp sour cream
-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
-1.25 cups (5 oz) confectioner's sugar

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line or grease a 13 by 9 inch baking pan.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
In a food processor, shred the carrots (or you can grate them, but it's time-consuming), you should have about 3 cups. Add the carrots to the bowl with the dry ingredients and set aside.
Wipe out the food processor and process both sugars with the eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined, about 20 seconds. With the machine running, add the oil through the feed tube in a steady stream (if you're not using a food processor, just add the oil slowly as you beat the sugar and eggs). Process until the mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 seconds longer.
Scrape the mixture into a large bowl, stir in the carrots and dry ingredients until they're well mixed with no streaks of flour left over.
Pour into the cake pan and bake until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 35 to 40 minutes.
If you want to frost the cake, let it cool to room temperature after it comes out of the oven. Process the cream cheese, butter, sour cream and vanilla in a clean food processor until combined (about 5 seconds), then add the confectioner's sugar and process until smooth (about 10 seconds). (If not using a food processor, just beat them together.) Using a spatula, spread the resulting frosting over the cake.

Variations:
*Spiced Carrot Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting
-Substitute an equal amount of ground black pepper for the nutmeg, increase the cloves to 1/4 tsp, and add 1 tbsp ground cardamom along with the spices. For the frosting, halve and scrape the seeds from 2 vanilla beans, and add the seeds to the food processor along with the vanilla extract.

*Ginger-Orange Carrot Cake with Orange Frosting
-Reduce the cinnamon to 1/2 tsp and add 1.5 tsp ground ginger along with the spices. Process 1 tbsp grated orange zest along with the sugar and eggs, and add 1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger along with the carrots. For the frosting, substitute an equal amount of orange juice for the sour cream and 1 tbsp grated orange zest for the vanilla.

... and now I want cake, darn it

[Lanaya]

My favourite meals, in terms of both taste and convenience:

- Macaroni cheese! Cook macaroni, make a simple bechamel sauce with some proper Dijon mustard thrown in, cook some thinly sliced mushrooms, slice a handful of cherry tomatoes in half and mix the whole thing together with grated cheese. Top it with more cheese (and breadcrumbs if you like some crunch) and throw it in the oven for 5-10 minutes to melt everything together and crisp things up.

- Pumpkin and blue cheese pasta (ideally with either gnocchi or that shell-shaped pasta but any will do). Cut the pumpkin up, season and drizzle olive oil over, then chuck it in the oven and go do something else for half an hour. Cook the pasta, melt blue cheese, pour plenty of cream over the blue cheese and toss some pepper in. Once the pasta's done, drain and pour it into the blue cheese sauce, then add the pumpkin.

[Zrak]

Cholesterol is a protein

If I didn't feel civilized discourse has a one novelty image per thread limit, there would be a photo of Tommy Lee Jones's wilting, disdainful glare in the space this sentence currently occupies. In lieu of that image, I will offer the suggestion that, in the future, you perform a level of research roughly commensurate with reading the first sentence of the wikipedia page of your subject prior to taking up the pretense of discussing that subject with any measure of authority.

[Teddy]

This discussion is two-in-one! It's a cookbook and an environmentalist debate, all at the same time!

Anyway, I'm not a vegetarian (might become for environmental reasons once I move out, but that's beside the point), but this pie is my favourite of all food:

Spoiler: Rucola Pie

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3 dl flour
125 g margarine (or butter)
4 tbsp water

3 dl cream (I think you may be able to change half or all of it for milk if you want, but I haven't tried it myself)
3 eggs
cheese (I don't like cheese, so I don't use it, but the original recipe uses cheese for topping)

150 g of rucola (I already know four different names which are in use on these boards, I'm not going to try and guess which one it is that you know.)
100 g sundried tomatos
3 garlic cloves
salt and pepper to your taste (I use roughly ½ tsp and 1 ml respectively)

Mix the flour and the margarine with a fork or your fingers until it turns fine-grained and there's no unmixed (pure white) flour left. Then add water and mix it until it becomes an even dough (I usually use a fork for the first step but my fingers for the second, as the intermediate step of the second is very sticky and not very easy to work with a fork. You know you're finished when it is more happy to stick to itself than to your fingers). Put the dough in a plastic bag (alternatively wrap it up in plastic foil) and put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour. This step can very well be done in the morning, it's nice to have it out of the way.

Put the oven on 200°C. Mix the cream and eggs and put it to the side. Form the pie shell in the tin, perforate it with a fork and pre-bake it in the lower parts of the oven for 10 minutes. Chop the rucola and the sundried tomatoes into large pieces (I usually aim for 2 * 2 cm squares, but you don't need to make them that small). Slice the garlic into thin slices. Sizzle the vegetables in a large pan. Add salt and pepper. Put the vegetables in the shell and pour the cream-egg mix over it. Top off with sliced or grated cheese. Put in the oven for another 30 minutes.

The amount of vegetables used isn't all too critical. Due to the size of the bags I buy rucola in, I actually use 195 g instead of 150 g, and I usually add more tomato as well, because I like the taste of it. For as long as you make the shell large enough to not overflow, you shouldn't have any troubles.

[Brother Oni]

Pretty sure Scotch, Irish Whiskey, cider, and beer all have marmite beat by a pretty wide margin.

I wouldn't include Irish whiskey with UK exports (Scotch is perfectly fine in light of recent events though ).

Smarties beat Marmite as well, although they're hard to import into the US (formerly, it was because the dye in the red ones was banned, now it's because another company owns the trademark in the US).

Oh, and those little adorable homemade hand-pies that are from Wales or Cornwall and then spread to the rest of the UK. Those are amazing.

Pasties? Also popular in Mexico and other places where Cornish miners went off to find work, although they've been tweaked to fit the local palate.

[Piggy Knowles]

Pretty sure Scotch, Irish Whiskey, cider, and beer all have marmite beat by a pretty wide margin. Also those wine gummies. Also Cadbury cream eggs. Also, Cadbury.

Eh, I'm pretty sure the UK can't take claim for cider or beer. Scotch is a tough one to beat, though.

And for the record, I'd much rather give up Cadbury than marmite.

Getting back to the subject on hand, I absolutely love to cook and most of what I cook is vegetarian, although I often don't do recipes. Instead, I come up with some base dishes that are easily modified in various ways. So, here are the things I most commonly cook on weeknights when I don't have an hour to spend, including the basic technique and a few specific dishes I make with it:

SAUCE 1: Starchy Pasta Water + Fat = Yum

OK, this is the easiest, most basic sauce to make, and some variation on this is probably what I cook more than anything else.

It's painfully simple: combine some sort of fat with starchy pasta water. Add heat and possibly cheese (more fat, yay!). Toss with pasta and vegetables. Enjoy.

Basically, the starchy pasta water and oil/fat emulsify together, giving you a delicious and simple meal that takes basically no time at all. There are a million variations on this, all depending on what I have on hand. Sometimes I'll cook aromatics (garlic, onions, shallot, whatever) in olive oil, add a bit of hot pepper and some veggies, then toss in the pasta straight from the pot with a pad of butter and a grating of fresh parm to help it all come together. Other times I'll just blanch the veggies in the same pot I use for pasta. Still other times, I make a full-on pasta cacio e pepe (recipe below). Either way, the technique is the same.

For some tricks... first, don't use a ton of extra pasta water. The starch in the water from cooking your pasta is what makes the sauce stick together, so more starchy, well-salted water will do better here. As long as the pasta is covered by a couple of inches, you'll be fine. Second, olive oil has excellent flavor, but doesn't usually form a great emulsion on its own. Adding a pad of butter or a little bit of cheese and keeping it under low heat for a few minutes helps it stick. Third, finish your pasta in the sauce. Cook it until it's got about a minute to go, then move it immediately to your sauce pan without rinsing.

I'll include a couple of basic recipes with this. The first is a super simple pasta with fresh veggies that takes all of twenty minutes to make (and half that time is boiling the water). The second is a classic Italian dish, cacio e pepe - pasta with oil, black pepper and parmesan reggiano.

Spoiler: Recipe 1 - Simple Pasta with Fresh Veggies

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INGREDIENTS: Fresh veggies, pasta, garlic, olive oil, butter, salt, black pepper

Set a pot of well-salted water to boil. When it is just boiling, add a couple of handfuls of quick-cooking vegetables (asparagus, snap peas, broccoli rabe, etc.). Cook until just barely done - usually no more than about two minutes - and immediately use tongs or a slotted spoon to remove to a strainer. Run cold water over the vegetables until they are cool to the touch.

Meanwhile, add pasta to the pot of boiling water, and cook until it's almost done. Drain but DO NOT rinse the pasta, and reserve about a half-cup of the pasta water.

Add some olive oil to the empty pot and heat it over medium heat. Then add a clove or two of minced garlic, and cook until aromatic but not brown (about a minute or two). Add the blanched vegetables, and cook for another minute or so. Add the pasta and the reserved cooking liquid, as well as a small pat of butter. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Season well with salt and pepper.

If you're feeling fancy, toss some freshly scissored parsley on top after you finish, and maybe grate some good parm over it. This stores fairly well, if you make up a big batch and have some leftovers later.

Spoiler: Recipe 2 - Cacio e pepe

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INGREDIENTS: Pasta, olive oil, butter, salt, pepper, really good parmesan, really good romano.

This is incredibly simple but incredibly rich and delicious. Prep everything first - get your pasta cooking in well-salted water, and get a good amount of grated parm and grated romano mixed together (for a pound of pasta, I use about a half-cup each). Grind a really good amount of black pepper into a small bowl, too - way more than you think you'll need.

When the pasta is almost done, heat a good amount of olive oil in a saute pan with high edges (I use about a third of a cup if I'm making a pound of pasta) at high heat until shimmery.

Using tongs, move the pasta from the pot directly into the hot oil (watch out for splattering!). Toss to make sure the pasta is all covered, then add a ladleful of the starchy pasta water directly to the pan with the oil and pasta. Add a tablespoon or two of butter, a very heavy pinch of black pepper, and almost all of your cheese. Using tongs, toss it all together, until the pasta is all covered with a slick, peppery sauce. Add more pepper if necessary, and if the sauce isn't slick, there's probably too much cheese, so add another splash of pasta water.

Serve immediately - this isn't a dish that gets better when it sits - with a sprinkling of some of the reserved pepper and cheese. Eat this all in one go; the sauce tends to separate if you try to refrigerate it.

SAUCE 2 - Slow-cooked Onions

This one sounds weird, but it's kind of amazing. Take a huge quantity of onions, sliced paper-thin, and cook them at a low, slow temperature for about half an hour or forty minutes. You're not making caramelized onions here, so the low temp is important. The onions just sort of melt away, and create this incredible richness when tossed with vegetables, pasta, etc..

Basically, get a couple of onions and slice them as thin as you possibly can. I like to slice them thin enough that they're translucent. (Hey, good practice for your knife skills, right?) Go ahead and mince some garlic while you're at it. Cook covered in a large, thick-bottomed pan in some olive oil over very low heat alongside salt and pepper and maybe a bay leaf or two. Then toss with whatever else you're having.

A certain sort of magic happens where the onions kind of melt into the background, providing both a sweetness and richness that is really surprising, but really really good.

My basic way of cooking this is to do the above, then toss with a pasta and some greens or veggies, whatever I have on hand. I'll include a recipe as an example.

Spoiler: Recipe 3 - Pasta with Lentils and Kale

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INGREDIENTS: Onions, garlic, pasta, french lentils, kale, parmesan, olive oil, red pepper flakes, bay leaf, salt, pepper

Thinly slice a couple of onions. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Add onions, a minced clove of garlic, a bay leaf and a pinch of red pepper flakes and salt. Toss until everything is combined, then reduce heat to low and loosely cover. Cook for 30-40 minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so. You don't want the onions to brown or burn - you want them to kind of steam in their own juices and turn translucent and wonderful.

Rinse french lentils well (you can use regular green lentils if you can't find the french kind, sometimes called lentils de puy - but french lentils are way better, as they remain distinct and firm instead of getting mushy), and cover them with water in a small pot by about an inch. Bring to a boil over medium heat, and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until done. Once done, drain off any excess water, and toss the lentils with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper and set aside.

Cook pasta in well-salted water. (I like pasta with little cups that will catch the lentils for this.) When there are about five minutes left, add in chopped kale. It'll wilt as you add it, making room to add more. Stir well, and drain, but do not rinse.

Combine pasta and kale, onion mixture, lentils and a bit of grated parm in the now-empty pot and toss well to combine. This stores exceptionally well, so I'll often make up a really big batch of this and save the leftovers for later in the week.

I'll add more when I get a chance!

[Brother Oni]

Eh, I'm pretty sure the UK can't take claim for cider or beer. Scotch is a tough one to beat, though.

Bear in mind that cider means something different here to over there (what you call cider, we call apple juice ).

A quick check on Google indicates we've been brewing cider in some form since the Roman invasion in 55AD, although it only really picked up after the Norman Conquest in the 11th Century.

As for which apple based alcoholic beverage is best, I'm too biased to make a fair assessment unfortunately (besides it's all good ).

[Crow]

Here is my favorite meatless recipe. It is stupid easy too:

1 medium avocado, ripe
2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tablespoons honey
1/3 cup almond or coconut milk
optional: crushed nuts or some berries

Remove avocado pit and scoop flesh into blender. Blend all ingredients until smooth. Add additional almond or coconut milk for a more thin consistency. Refrigerate to chill. Serve topped with nuts or fresh berries.

@-Sentinel-: Don't get all butthurt man, I'm not trying to pick a fight. Just don't forget what fertilizes all those fields where we grow our crops. The emissions that come from the animals themselves are accompanied by the material that makes larger crop yields possible after thousands of years of agriculture in the same dirt. Modern agriculture and husbandry *need* each other. Footprint caused by transport is about the same, depending on how far the cow needed to go in order to be slaughtered.

Then we look at the rates of soil erosion in agricultural lands compared to those of pasture land. Let us not forget the way humans have destroyed biodiversity in the places we have chosen to farm; Replacing countless indigenous plant species with the handful of species that we want to grow there.

I choose to reduce my "footprint" by purchasing my produce from local growers, and growing what I can in my small garden (actually quite a lot most seasons, fertilized by matter from our compost pile/dogs!). Some of my neighbors and people who live nearby focus on different crops at different times, and we swap so that we enjoy greater supply and diversity of veggies/fruits by season. For meat, I purchase free range grassfed animals that are slaughtered locally, by an actual butcher. In addition to this, we limit our power and water consumption to what is needed, and try to ride bike/walk places instead of driving whenever possible. We avoid buying products from companies that produce their products in countries with lax environmental and labor regulations, and support local businesses whenever possible. If it can be produced locally, we buy locally. Granted, I live in California where things are grown or raised nearly everywhere.

However, I will not sacrifice my health. Human beings are evolved/designed to be omnivores. It isn't just about macro-nutrients. The vitamins and minerals in fresh veggies and fruit are akin to the amino acids and other compounds in meat. Going vegetarian to "reduce carbon footprint" just feels like a way to take an easy way out and not feel guilty, because we're "doing our part". Like buying carbon credits (but better than that at least!).

[Coidzor]

I wouldn't include Irish whiskey with UK exports (Scotch is perfectly fine in light of recent events though ).

Smarties beat Marmite as well, although they're hard to import into the US (formerly, it was because the dye in the red ones was banned, now it's because another company owns the trademark in the US).

Pasties? Also popular in Mexico and other places where Cornish miners went off to find work, although they've been tweaked to fit the local palate.

They don't have distilleries in... Ulster was it?

They're like... little chocolate beads with a multi-colored candy shell, right? Like spherish m&ms only better chocolate as the base?

Mmm, pasties. Probably pasties. Ahh, Cornwall, source of Pirates and Pasties. And Koorlies, but there's no way to make that begin with a P.

[TechnoScrabble]

As someone who was vegetarian from the ages of five to twelve, I recommend you ease yourself into it and maybe find a dietician to avoid some of the issues that come from a change in diet, however sudden or drawn out it may be. I had to stop because my metabolism outstripped the calorie and nutrient intake of what my family could put on the table for me, but I don't expect that you have the same health concerns that I do.

Slow cookers are your friend, as well as baking dishes and steaming dishes. Basalmic vinegrette and other vinegar and wine based dressings are good for most anything with lots of greenery, as is cheese for baked veggies, if you choose to include it. It's gotta be good cheese, though, that Kraft crap I find all over the place is bad for you, vegetarian or not. Tofu and nutrient enriched meat substitutions aren't as gross as media would have you think, I actually really like tofu and substitution ground turkey and still use them in a lot of my cooking. Couscous is gonna be something you'll want to try, just because it tastes so frikkin good with some diced mushroom and imitation turkey. Nuts and beans are good, and I used to make a dish (still do, actually) where I'd grab black beans, red kidney beans, black eyed beans, garbanzo beans, kernel corn, and a jar of salsa and toss it all (with the juices from the canned beans and corn) into the slow cooker with some basalmic vinegrette for a few hours. One good batch will leave leftovers for four or so people for days, but its best with some corn bread and juice or milk to keep the taste from getting too strong every few bites.

[Brother Oni]

They don't have distilleries in... Ulster was it?

Hmm, you're right, there's at least a Bushmill's distillery in County Antrim. I stand corrected.

They're like... little chocolate beads with a multi-colored candy shell, right? Like spherish m&ms only better chocolate as the base?

Exactly, only a little bigger. In the interests of objectivity, I hesitate to say the chocolate is of better quality, but I prefer them to M&Ms.

Mmm, pasties. Probably pasties. Ahh, Cornwall, source of Pirates and Pasties. And Koorlies, but there's no way to make that begin with a P.

If get her drunk enough, she probably won't care.

[Moriwen]

My best tips for meatless meals (from a lifelong vegetarian):

Tex-mex lends itself excellently to vegetarian eating, since beans are such a staple. Tacos, burritos, flautas, nachos, tostadas... Just omit the ground meat, basically, and you're still getting a good dose of protein from the beans.

Instead of trying to replicate meat-based meals with vegetarian substitutes, eat recipes that are intended not to involve meat. They're just much tastier. Consider things you might usually think of as side dishes -- usually when I go to a restaurant without much of a vegetarian selection, I'll open up the menu and flip straight to the sides.

As far as meat substitutes go, the various soy-based products are OK but I'm not a big fan. Mushrooms are good. Falafel is delicious. I highly recommend spaghetti with falafel balls.