There are many reasons to eat less meat — it’s better for the environment, better for your body and better for your wallet. On top of all of this, Paul McCartney has a campaign encouraging people to go meat-free on Mondays. If you don’t know who Paul McCartney is, he was one of the Beatles, along with Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Rihanna and Kanye West.
But are there compelling reasons not to cut down on your meat eating? Possibly, if you’re not much of a cook — average bacon tastes better than average cauliflower, in my experience. If you’re really going to do this you’re going to want to look forward to your Monday meals, which will require some time and preparation — both a little hard to come by if you have a proper job and aren’t just pottering about all day in the $25 million kitchen you paid for with the royalties from Hey Jude.
As an aspiring meatless eater, your new best friends will be Nigel Slater and haloumi. So let me introduce them to you one at a time.
Nigel Slater is my favourite British chef. He makes vegetable-based food that is tasty, easy and uncomplicated. His huge book, Tender, has a chapter for each vegetable with recipes and ad lib ideas — perfect when you buy three eggplants on special at Fruit World then have to work out what to do with the bloody things.
Haloumi goes with any baked, steamed or boiled vegetable, and it’s a nice salty, fatty-tasting hit for when the produce starts tasting too worthy. Don’t listen to anyone who says they have a “trick” for frying it: using a proper non-stick pan is the only surefire technique.
Haloumi and Nigel will get you through the 52 Mondays of 2016, and by then, I’m confident, you’ll be ready for tahini and Yotam. Just take my advice and steer clear of Yoko — she drove Kanye away from the rest of the band.
