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OK I'm a carnivore at heart - there's nothing quite like a juicy rare hunk of steak in my book.

I abhor TVP on principle but if that's your thing fair enough. I thnk you can cook veggy food thats great just using vegetables without adding fake meat to your dish.

When I first started my life as a chef veggies were frowned upon but slowly vegetarian food has crept onto menus all over the place by popular demand and my favourite vegetarian dish which I stick onto menus whenever I get the chance these days is Butternut Squash - roasted pinenut and spinach pasta.

I cook this for myself quite often it makes a great lunch.

ingredients: (4 portions)

1 butternut squash
1 bulb of garlic
1 red onion
handful of pine nuts
olive oil
Pasta (Pappardelle is my favourite with this but you can use any shape you like - Penne works quite well) - enough for 4 people
100g Gorgonzola cheese
50g Parmesan (freshly grated)
4 Good handfuls of spinach
salt and pepper

Method:

Peel the squash and cut into large 2cmish chunks
break the garlic into cloves and squash each one with the flat part of a knife leaving the skin on.

Mix the squash chunks and squashed garlic cloves together - drizzle with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper and roast for about an hour at 150oC until squash is soft.

Remove the garlic (keep the roasted cloves in oil and use the oil to add fabulous flavour to later dishes)

Cut gorgonzola into 1cmish chunks.

Cook the Pasta in rapidly boiling water for about 6 minutes - drain and place into a large bowl, season well with pepper add the gorgonzola and sprinkle with Parmesan.

Finely slice the red onion and cook in a little oil - add onion to pasta.

Toast the pinenuts in olive oil till golden brown - remove nuts from pan - but keep the oil in there to cook the spinach in.

Get a frypan really hot and rapidly cook the spinach until it wilts (hint - do not add salt to spinach until after it's cooked - it draws water out of the leaves and causes them to boil rather than fry - season with salt after wilting)

By this time the heat from the pasta will have nicely melted the Parmesan and the Gorgonzola will have started to go gooey as well - mix the cooked squash and the spinach and pine nuts through your cheesy pasta - then dish up into bowls and enjoy.

You can also throw sundried tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, kalamata olives some porcini mushrooms and if you really insist ripped up Parma Ham as well for variations.

If blue cheese turns you blue Taleggio makes a viable alternative.