The golden rule being: avoid pseudo meat.

It may have taken me a while to get used to vegetarian cooking, but with my man only just dabbling in poultry for the first time in over a decade, I figured I better suck it up and find something to live off of. Let's face it, I will love him even if he never eats a steak in his life, so I better find something nice we can both have on special occasions.

And after a few years, I can honestly say the non-meat dinners are not lacking in anything. In fact, they are some of my favourite foods. I would give you a catalogue of all my recent cooking triumphs, but that's just gloating, so I'll limit it to last night's inspired menu:

Falafel Burgers
Potato Wedges
Lentil side

Now, this may sound like health-nut tofu and seeds world, but rest assured, it is the perfect lazy, greasy, salty Friday-night-with-beer dinner ever.

1, make homemade potato wedges so you can put as much salt and cajun spice on them as you like. I put on loads, then dip them in honey instead of ketchup to balance it out. Or on lazier days, buy the frozen ones ready made.

2, Lentils are brilliant. This dish is:
A cup or two of rinsed green lentils
A tin of chopped tomatoes
A large helping of garlic, oregano and italian herbs
Cover with water, simmer for half an hour or so - until the lentils are soft and delicious. It's sort of similar to how grannies have baked beans at bbqs, except these taste brilliant and are less slimy.

3, Falafel Burgers:
Falafel (I can almost never be bothered to make these from scratch, but it doesn't matter) grilled up then smashed into miniburgers (rather than the hush puppy balls they usually come in)
Halloumi (the only cheese you can bbq), god love Cyprus. It's salty and known around our house as 'the squeaky cheese'. pan fry in strips for maximum crispy outside, gooey inside.
top these with homous & pesto inside hard core seed roles (the best have multi-seed mix baked in, not just on top)



It is truly a feast, and goes brilliantly with my new favourite beer : Innis & Gunn. A cinnamony local brew. Yum. If beer were a dessert, this would be it.

Next time on Cooking for A Veggie and Loving It: Chick Pea & Almond Tagine!