Every year, I spend Christmas at home with my family, getting plied with whisky macs, mince pies and kisses from my grandma while she drops hints about the absence of great-grandchildren. Before sitting down to lunch, my stepdad will put on The Pogues, by the end of which everyone is stamping their feet, rapping cutlery on the table and singing at the top of their voices.

For a lot of my childhood I was vegetarian, but the Christmas offerings were so poor Id turn to the slightly dry turkey at the centre of the festive table and relax my morals for the day, secretly enjoying the bird.

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Nowadays I eat everything, but given the choice I pick vegetables over meat every time. Unfortunately this isnt always a viable option even now (in this post-Ottolenghi-veg-centric era), otherwise excellent restaurants will have one pitiful vegetarian option, only on the menu because it has to be there. In my work as a chef, Ive set out to turn this archaic view on its head, putting vegetables centre-stage and making carnivores jealous of their more flexitarian friends.

My cooking is defined by the phrase root to fruit: using local, seasonal and organic ingredients and wasting nothing. Seasonal cookery leads quite naturally to a focus on vegetables - including at Christmas time - and my waste not approach inevitably makes cooking on a budget easier. In turn, this all enables an infinite number of creative dishes.

Here Ive written a couple of special recipes and one more online that challenge the common assumption that meat should be the centrepiece of a Christmas meal. With these treats served alongside all the usual trimmings, no one will be missing out.

Rotolo di pasta is a classic Italian family dish in which pasta sheets envelop spinach and ricotta. Ive made the recipe a little more Christmassy with figs, chestnuts and beetroot tops (if you dont have any to hand, spinach or rainbow chard would work too). You can buy rolled pasta, but try making your own with spelt flour a highly nutritious, primitive wheat. It has a high gluten content ideally suited to making pasta. If you dont have time to make your own pasta then the filling also makes a wonderful sauce turned through tagliatelle over a low heat with some butter and sage. This dish would work well as a centerpiece for your Christmas dinner table served with lots of vibrant greens and roast vegetables.

Waste not: Cut the excess pasta trimmings into pieces and dry to make malfatti misshapen pasta to use in a later meal.

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Tis the season to be veggie: Christmas vegetarian recipes

By Matt Cantor

Newser

A portobello burger with sun-dried tomato mayo is seen in this July 2, 2010, photo.(AP Photo/Larry Crowe)

It seems becoming a vegetarian and staying a vegetarian are two very different things. A whopping 84 percent of vegetarians end up eating meat again, and most people shift back within a single year, according to a new study.

Specifically, 53 percent of vegetarians are meat-eaters again within 12 months, while more than 30 percent go back to meat within three months, the Huffington Post reports.

Of the 11,000 people studied, 2 percent were vegetarians, 10 percent former vegetarians, and 88 percent lifelong meat-eaters. A major reason for lapsing, it seems, was social: Those who returned to being omnivorous didn't have enough support among friends for their vegetarian lifestyles.

Earlier research points to health issues from staying meat-free, the Smithsonian reports. Some 35% of respondents to a separate survey of lapsed vegetarians said their own poorer health drove them back to animal flesh, Skeptoid reports.

"I will take a dead cow over anemia anytime," says one respondent. And in the Guardian, a lapsed vegetarian writes about the inconvenience of avoiding meat, as well as the feeling of "every cell in my body screaming 'proteinthat's what you need.'" Perhaps the writer would agree with the conclusions of the new study, as Co.Exist reports them: "A message focused on reduction instead of elimination of animal products may be more effective to create an overall decline in animal product consumption." (Read about a veggie burger that "bleeds" like meat.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Most Vegetarians Keep It Up for ... a Year

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Most vegetarians go back to meat ... fast

Chris Douglas-Roberts separated himself from most NBA players by requesting short shorts this season.

Theres another thing that differentiates him from most of his colleagues -- hes a vegetarian.

Douglas-Roberts said that he stopped eating meat, fish and poultry about two years ago.

I feel great, he said. You just see differences in your everyday life.

The shooting guard said that changing his diet has had a positive impact on his performance.

I dont really feel tired, he said.

Douglas-Roberts, 27, has been sidelined with a strained right Achilles' tendon since late November. The small forward had been averaging two points and 1.8 rebounds in 11.3 minutes over four games. He has a career average of 7.3 points and 2.2 rebounds in 20.2 minutes a game.

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Clippers' Chris Douglas-Roberts recently became a vegetarian

When I was first learning about organic food production and consumer values in the 1990s, the organic Twinkie problem was being hotly debated in both the academic and popular presses. Could a Twinkie really be considered organic even if all of the ingredients were USDA certified? Twinkies are, after all, an iconic symbol of our industrialized food system, with ashelf life spanning yearsand the supernatural ability tosurvive a nuclear holocaust(along with cockroaches). While neither of these well-known facts turns out to be true, Twinkies certainly represent the pinnacle of modern food science and mass distribution systems.

But despite those who believe the values associated with organic food should extend beyond the production materials and techniques overseen by the USDA, a growing number of reputable natural food companies are producing what can only be called organic junk food. I have to admit that I, along with many other greenies, am happily eating it up!

Based on anecdotal evidence alone, it appears that as alternative organic brands like Earthbound Farm and Newmans Own continue to gain mainstream traction, a new era of artisan-crafted treats is emerging and many of them are hitting every possible green button at once.A classic example isOscar Williams Gourmet Cotton Candy.

This gourmet spun sugar delight features all of the following green values:

1. Founders With A Story & A Social Mission.The company began as afundraising effort for an HIV outreach program (PASTD.ORG) that the founders set up afterlosing several friends to the disease.We were only planning to sell the product once, but the community loved it so much, that after muchdiscussion we decided to become an official business, founder TashaHolland-Kornegayexplained.

2. Giving A Portion Of Sales To Charity. Oscar WilliamsGourmet Cotton Candy contributes 10% of all sales back into the community, by distributing HIV/AIDS pamphlets and sponsoring educational workshops.

3. All Natural, Vegan & Gluten-Free Products. Their gourmet cotton candy is all-natural, allergen-free and gluten-free. As a result, many of their products are also white so you do not get any unnecessary dyes.Being that my husband and I are both vegans, we wanted to make sure we offered a product that reflected who we were, Tasha explains.

The rest is here:
Organic Junk Food 2.0