I recently had the pleasure of chatting to professional footballer and Quorn ambassador Jermain Defoe.

I’m not as into my football as I used to be but Jermain has been on the professional scene for quite a number of years now. Whenever I hear his name, I always think of three things. One, he should have been selected to play for England more. Two, how his friendship with Bradley Lowery touched the hearts of millions of fans around the world. And three, he was injury prone.

On that last point, I always thought it was typical he never missed a game when playing up here at Sunderland. As a Newcastle fan, I wish he didn’t score as many goals for them, haha. I think he single handedly saved them from the drop! Then I started putting two and two together. Was his switch to a vegan diet behind the fact he never missed a single game while playing for Sunderland?

Jermain says he has a better understanding of his body now. I was keen to know what made him make this decision and what kind of things he eats now. Find out what he had to say by watching the video below.

I can’t believe he dodged the chips question though, haha! It was great to chat to Jermain and you can’t argue with the evidence of him playing every single game in a season. I think I’m going to have to watch the documentary he mentioned now!

It was interesting to hear how his Mum always has a table full of meat and sometimes he’s tempted. Speaking of which, our own family meals have been going really well. We don’t eat together all the time but we’re still making a conscious effort to all eat at the table at least a couple of times a week.

This week we made a delicious curry and boy was it good! Even the kids gave this a thumbs up and we all know how fussy they are.

Using Quorn pieces and Mayflower Chinese style medium curry sauce mix. Here’s a recipe and it serves two.

Ingredients

• 350g Quorn pieces
• One small onion (sliced)
• Half a cup of garden peas
• 1/3 of Mayflower curry mix from box
• Spray oil
• 460ml of cold water

Method

1. Heat the spray oil in a wok or frying pan.
2. Stir the Quorn pieces for approximately three minutes.
3. Add the onion and peas and stir fry for another minute.
4. Remove contents from wok / frying pan and keep warm.
5. Add water to wok / frying pan and stir in the curry mix. Whisk until the sauce comes to the boil.
6. Reintroduce the Quorn pieces, onion and peas.
7. Lower the heat and simmer for two minutes stirring occasionally.
8. Serve hot.

Or you can do what we do most of the time and throw everything into a slow cooker for around five hours. Obviously make up the curry sauce before you throw it in!

If you like a takeaway Chinese curry, then this is the perfect recipe for you. Lets call it a ‘fakeaway’ without you rolling your eyes, haha! Seriously though, it’s absolutely delicious and I can’t recommend this recipe highly enough. Let me know if you decide to give it a whirl.

Thanks again for reading. Next time, we’ll all be trying Quorn burgers and I’ll be chatting to someone who’s been a vegetarian for over 25 years!

*Disclaimer: This was a collaborative post with Quorn. All words and opinions are my own.