Michael Kelly does without . . . meat
I come from a family of notorious meat-eaters. When I go to my mother's for dinner, and it's just the pair of us, she usually cooks two chickens - "just in case someone else joins us" - and we enjoy a feast of ancient Roman proportions. The Consumer Analysis Group estimates the average European will eat 760 chickens, 20 pigs, 29 sheep and five cows in their lifetime - amazingly, the amount of meat consumed at the last Kelly family reunion.
Part of the joy of cooking with meat is that it's so simple. You can pop your hand in the freezer and pull out a few lamb chops or, perhaps, grab some mince and rustle up some home-made burgers. Simple.
But at the start of my planned week without meat I sat down to think about what we could eat, and I couldn't come up with a single vegetarian recipe. Does soup count as dinner?
Having trawled through cookery books I came up with a vegetarian meal plan and glumly went shopping. "Hi there, Michael," my portly butcher said cheerily. I walked past his counter with my veggie-laden trolley, trying to avoid eye contact and feeling adulterous.
First up on the week's menu was a mackerel supper. I'm ashamed to say that even though we live in a fishing village we rarely eat fish. That's a scandal, and I blame how much I love meat.
The fresh mackerel were rubbed in butter, dumped in flour and chargrilled, then served with brown bread, a wedge of lemon and a cup of tea. Very tasty, but a bit Lenten fast, if you catch my drift.
I was nervous about day two's lentil burgers, but they tasted good with rustic potatoes and tzatziki. If you closed your eyes, and ignored your taste buds, you could kid yourself that they were real burgers.
On day three I had great fun making pizza bases and a tomato sauce. The results were very tasty. On day four salmon fillets in a tomato-and-herb sauce were yum, but I found myself increasingly dreaming of a bloody steak. On day five, feeling pale, lethargic and barely able to stand up, I went out for dinner. I had the vegetarian dish. I think it was ratatouille. "It's no sirloin," I told the waitress.
I don't think vegetarianism is for me. I'm a Kelly, after all.