Enjoying vegetarian dishes

Celeriac

We had this unique dish for dinner, roasted whole celeriac. I was at first sceptical because it looked weird (see picture, separate blog entry for the recipe to follow). Thankfully I did not let that get in the way. It turned out very delicious, and reminded me of a root crop called Bisol in Cebuano (Chinese taro).

Guus found the recipe through an Ottolenghi article in The Guardian which also mentioned that filling your meal with two or three vegetable side dishes would likely mean you don't need a meat dish dish anymore.

In many homes, meat is almost always at the center of the dinner table, while vegetables take the sideline.  Many home-cooked Dutch dinners consist of meat, potatoes and vegetables on the side.  In the Philippines, there are many vegetable dishes that to me feel complete without meat but people almost always add meat. This mentality of always having meat is partly cultural (some cultures really feature meat in their specialty dishes). We think it's also partly out of habit and lack of exposure to vegetarian dishes. Most people agree that vegetarian dishes are healthy, but not everyone thinks that it's enjoyable to eat vegetarian dishes.

Lasagna at Nosha's Healthy Options

To be honest, Guus and I are not vegatarians.When we eat at somebody else's place we usually eat whatever is served including meat dishes. But when we cook, we almost always cook vegetarian dishes. There are many good reasons to eat less meat (animals) and eat more vegetables. It's healhier, better for the environment, and better for animals. But there's one more good reason to eat vegetarian that seems to be taken for granted.  I eat more vegetarian dishes also because there's so much great and delicious vegetarian dishes. For example, there's this nice vegetarian food shop in Gibraltar that's called Nosha's Heatlhy Options. The name implies that the food is healthy, which is true, but the name does not highlight that their dishes are also quite good and enjoyable.

Vegetarian dishes are definitely healthy, better for the environment and more caring for animals. But they are also enjoyable to cook and eat. So, I started this blog to motivate myself to explore a variety of vegetarian dishes, and share the recipes that I like most. After more than a year of eating more vegetarian dishes, I've cooked vegetarian dishes from different parts of the world, tried different ways of cooking familiar vegetables, and also tried unfamiliar (and sometimes odd-shaped) vegetables. Hopefully, this blog will also encourage people to eat more vegetarian dishes. I hope that more people will not only think of vegetarian dishes as healthy, environmentally-friendly and animal-free options; but as dishes to enjoy and share with loved ones.

Tweet