Not Yet Fluent in Vegetarianism

My veggie housemate Beth asked me an all-important meat ban question the other day:

"So where will you be getting your protein from?"

Er, chicken? I thought. Oh yeah, that's meat too...oh dear...

She quickly reeled off some options: beans, pulses, tofu, eggs, cheese, nuts and seeds...so earlier this week, I went off to Tesco's with a vague shopping list of 'canned stuff'. I'll be getting fresh foods at the market as usual every week of course, but I wanted to stock up on heavy stuff since my housemate Grace was driving. I've carted a sack of rice home on my bike once but I don't think I could cope with a load of knobbly cans in my back!

We headed to the aisle with all the beans and things and suddenly I became overwhelmed. I just didn't know what to get - I love kidney beans but have never really bought other types of beans before. Mung, cannellini, flageolet, haricot, aduki, pinto...I haven't even heard of half of them. So I decided to get one of each. My kitchen cupboard now looks like a scary fortress with all of those cans stacked high.

I've been looking up random recipes here and there because I don't want to end up being stuck for ideas and resorting to a veggie stir-fry every day or something. It might even lead me to using the oven more...which does scare me a little. I'm a wok girl at heart and have always been a bit afraid of the dark depths of ovens - you just don't know what's going to come out of there.

If at all possible, I want to avoid 'fake meat' substitutes - I don't want to have Quorn burgers and sausages, fake turkey mince and the like. As well as my concerns about what is put in them to make them taste like meat, I want my veggie month to be completely non-meat flavoured, so as not to satisfy the inevitable meat cravings I'll have over the next four weeks.

(Oh no, that means I can't eat McCoy's flame-grilled steak crisps...*deflates*)

So I did a search online to find other veggie subsitutes: tofu - yep, I can live with that; seitan - eh? tempah - what? It's like I'm about to learn a whole new language of food...

Earlier today, I asked a couple of my colleagues (veggie man Iain, and food-cooking crazy Megan) for ideas. Megan's eyes opened wide with excitement and babbled something at me that was indecipherable.

"Parma-what?"

"Parmigiana melanzane!!" She shrieked (ok, I'm exaggerating, she didn't shout that loud).

In the end, I got her to email it to me because I just couldn't understand. From the recipe, it sounds like an aubergine lasagne type dish which sounds...interesting. (I'm not the biggest fan of aubergine or lasagne, but hey, I'll try anything.)

It's really exciting picking up all of these different recipes though as I love taking time in the kitchen to cook. Though I do have a habit of choosing quick recipes because I'm always starving after work.

So with promises of cookbooks and recipes being sent my way to beef me up, veggie-style, there will be no chance of me wilting away munching on carrots in the corner, rocking away muttering, "Steak, steak..."

Three days to go...