Meat Free Mondays?

If you were asked to compile a list of famous vegetarians, chances are Sir Paul McCartney would be right up there. (Probably just behind Adolf Hitler, but he's less of a role model when it comes to life choices, I feel). The McCartney family are evangelical about their vegetarian lifestyle, but at the same time accept that us meat eaters like our meat and aren't prepared to give it up completely. That's where the Meat Free Monday concept came from.

Meat Free Mondays is a campaign designed to get people thinking about eating veggie at least once per week. According to the website, if more people made veggie choices CO2 emissions would be cut dramatically and carbon footprints lowered. This is due to the fact that it takes far more resources to raise a cow then it does to grow some carrots, for example.

It really doesn't take much effort and thought to go vegetarian once per week, and the other thing I've found is that it is often cheaper too. We don't always stick to Mondays for our meat free day, mainly due to the fact that Mondays is a busy day with Cubs, dancing and so on and I don't have time to get creative in the kitchen.

This week, we're having meat free Wednesday. And the meat free option is a guaranteed crowd pleaser of home made pizza. I have recently cracked making my own pizza base dough and it's really not that difficult as it's just warm water, flour, yeast and a bit of olive oil. Ready made passata is the perfect tomato sauce base, and for toppings my kids prefer plain cheese, with the occasional addition of something really exotic like sweetcorn. They're not the most adventurous kids when it comes to pizza, but the beauty of pizza is that it is a great dish to use up what you've got left over in the fridge or freezer.

Not sure what we're having for our next meat free day, but there is a bag of green lentils at the back of the cupboard which is rapidly approaching its "use before" date. Suggestions please?