Every year, I spend Christmas at home with my family, getting plied with whisky macs, mince pies and kisses from my grandma while she drops hints about the absence of great-grandchildren. Before sitting down to lunch, my stepdad will put on The Pogues, by the end of which everyone is stamping their feet, rapping cutlery on the table and singing at the top of their voices.

For a lot of my childhood I was vegetarian, but the Christmas offerings were so poor Id turn to the slightly dry turkey at the centre of the festive table and relax my morals for the day, secretly enjoying the bird.

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Nowadays I eat everything, but given the choice I pick vegetables over meat every time. Unfortunately this isnt always a viable option even now (in this post-Ottolenghi-veg-centric era), otherwise excellent restaurants will have one pitiful vegetarian option, only on the menu because it has to be there. In my work as a chef, Ive set out to turn this archaic view on its head, putting vegetables centre-stage and making carnivores jealous of their more flexitarian friends.

My cooking is defined by the phrase root to fruit: using local, seasonal and organic ingredients and wasting nothing. Seasonal cookery leads quite naturally to a focus on vegetables - including at Christmas time - and my waste not approach inevitably makes cooking on a budget easier. In turn, this all enables an infinite number of creative dishes.

Here Ive written a couple of special recipes and one more online that challenge the common assumption that meat should be the centrepiece of a Christmas meal. With these treats served alongside all the usual trimmings, no one will be missing out.

Rotolo di pasta is a classic Italian family dish in which pasta sheets envelop spinach and ricotta. Ive made the recipe a little more Christmassy with figs, chestnuts and beetroot tops (if you dont have any to hand, spinach or rainbow chard would work too). You can buy rolled pasta, but try making your own with spelt flour a highly nutritious, primitive wheat. It has a high gluten content ideally suited to making pasta. If you dont have time to make your own pasta then the filling also makes a wonderful sauce turned through tagliatelle over a low heat with some butter and sage. This dish would work well as a centerpiece for your Christmas dinner table served with lots of vibrant greens and roast vegetables.

Waste not: Cut the excess pasta trimmings into pieces and dry to make malfatti misshapen pasta to use in a later meal.

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More here:
Tis the season to be veggie: Christmas vegetarian recipes