STARING at my freezer full of chicken, sausages and minced beef, I wondered why I had agreed to give up meat for the week.

Ahead of National Vegetarian Week, which begins today, I decided to ditch ham sandwiches and beef lasagnes and engagemy imagination to come up with some tasty veggie alternatives.

But my week’s efforts, below, paled in comparison to the huge variety of vegetarian dishes which I did not have the time or ingredients to attempt.

That is why I went along to Newport’s long-established vegetarian café, Hunky Dory’s, on Charles Street in the city centre, where owner and head chef Shaheen Sutton regularly serves up curried parsnip burgers, samosa pies, smoked tofu stroganoff and balsamic beetroot pasta.

Last year, the soup company New Covent Garden sold Ms Sutton’s butternut squash, jalapeno and black turtle bean soup in supermarkets nationwide.

This week, to celebrate National Vegetarian Week, the menu at Hunky Dory’s includes watermelon and black bean curry, and rhubarb and puy lentil curry, as well as customer favourites such as the VBLT sandwich where the ‘bacon’ is made from lentils, grains and spices.

“I am not evangelical about being vegetarian,” said Ms Sutton, as I tucked into a delicious parsnip, potato and fenugreek pie served with chaat masala chick peas and green beans.

“I try to encourage people to incorporate more vegetables in their diet, especially ones that are in season and locally produced. You just have to be a more creative in your approach.

“We never serve jacket potatoes here, that’s a policy.”

Visit www.hunkydoryscafe.blogspot.co.uk to find out more about their vegetarian menu.

Get a copy of the Vegetarian Society’s ‘Going Veggie’ booklet by visiting www.nationalvegetarian week.org or call 01619 252000.

A week of tasty treats saved cash

SUNDAY’S evening meal was a great start, homemade egg fried rice with peas and Sri Lankan paneer (cheese) curry. Very tasty, albeit quite unhealthy with the cheese, and absolutely not missing the meaty contents of pork or chicken.

Thinking of meat-free sandwiches for lunch which did not comprise of egg or cheese proved to be slightly trickier, and I did resort to a meat substitute - Quorn turkey and stuffing slices - which tasted very similar to supermarket processed meat, and worked well.

Throughout the week I had vegetable chilli, a huge veggie stir fry, margherita pizza and garlic bread (can’t be all healthy I suppose) and a vegetable biryani, all of which I would eat as part of my normal diet and which are so full of flavour that meat is not missed.

It is easy to cook large amounts of vegetarian food for relatively little cost, so I often ate last night’s leftovers for lunch, and easily saved £20 on meat.

One thing which surprised me was looking at ingredient labels and realising that some meat-free products are still not vegetarian - such as green pesto, for example, which is full of animal rennet because of the parmesan cheese.