Radiating a healthy vitamin-induced glow, Mr River Cottage slurps happily on a fruity smoothie.

Looking tanned, slim and smartly groomed (those trademark curly locks were snipped off months ago), his three-month old vegetarian diet is clearly working wonders.

“I think this is the result of longer than that actually,” he says, referring to his overtly rude health. “The cookbook’s been more than a year in the making, although I officially went veggie when I started filming the TV series at the start of the summer.”

He’s certainly on form to beat off any criticisms his latest venture, River Cottage Veg, might elicit.

Since June, the TV chef’s been cooking up meat-free meals, to prove to himself, and viewers, that veggie cooking is no dull alternative.

“I’ve always promoted eating more vegetables. In fact the first line of my meat cookbook says we’re all eating far too much meat,” says the cook defensively, in response to any critics who may point out that, conversely, he’s just spent the last year encouraging the public to eat sustainable fish, such as sardines, herring and mackerel, as part of his Fish Fight campaign.

“This book is the natural companion to all those campaigns,” he explains, also referring to Chicken Out, the free-range farming initiative he began three years ago.

While Fearnley-Whittingstall’s not claiming to have converted to vegetarianism forever, he is hoping his latest endeavour will encourage people to cook more veg.

“But it’s not a new soap box. I just hope if I put the book and TV series out there, they will percolate into peoples’ cooking long-term.”

Without being “too po-faced about it” Fearnley-Whittingstall says he’s keen for our culinary culture to evolve.

“We’ve got the balance fundamentally wrong and I think in our heart of hearts we all know that.

“We need to raise a generation of cooks for whom vegetables are their first stop and everything else comes after that.

“When we have meat and fish, it should be a wonderful treat once or twice a week.”

While his River Cottage may have a freezer full of home-reared meat, Fearnley-Whittingstall’s been serving up beetroot salads instead.

“One of the hits of the summer were the deep fried courgette flowers. The kids loved them,” he says.

But “easy wins” such as deep-frying veggies and adding cheese are not the only way to make veg delicious, he adds. The best way is to treat them like meat.

“Burning vegetables is a really good idea. Not to a cinder, but by grilling, roasting, barbecuing, and getting those crispy chargrilled edges. It creates a whole new flavour because it burns the sugars.

“If you fry courgettes in olive oil, perhaps with a touch of garlic and chilli, you’ll get a lovely savoury exterior and the inside remains very tender and yielding, as if it’s been steamed.”

And unlike meat, all vegetables should be served up equally.

“Meat is quite tyrannical. It sits in the middle of the plate and demands your attention. Vegetable cooking is more democratic.

“Just think of a salad with courgettes, beans, leaves, tomatoes and tahini dressing – none are the vital ingredient, they blend together and each bit delivers, so it’s important to encourage this balance in your vegetarian cooking.”

While he’s expecting a certain amount of stick for his apparent U-turn on eating meat, the cook has little time for veggie prejudice by mainstream chefs.

“I think it’s a slightly male thing, ‘Yeah let’s get the vegetarians’. You know, ‘If you’ve never eaten a raw steak or bleeding grouse, you haven’t lived’. It’s nonsense, macho posturing.

“It’s also a sign of weakness. If you have to attack a whole area of cooking, it’s not very grown-up. So let’s not make this an ascetic, do-goody thing, let’s make it an enjoyable feast.”

Hugh’s veggie cooking tips

• Become Enlightened!

• Let The Pulses In

• Buy Whole Seeds

Here are three tasty recipes from Fearnley-Whittingstall’s veggie kitchen…

Raid-the-larder bean and spelt broth

(Serves 2)

750ml vegetable stock

50g pearled spelt (or pearl barley)

A few leaves of cabbage, kale or greens, or a couple of handfuls of spinach, washed

1 medium carrot, peeled and diced

100g frozen peas or petits pois

400g tin cannellini or other white beans, drained and rinsed

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Extra virgin olive oil, to finish

Bring the stock to the boil in a saucepan. Add the spelt (or barley), reduce the heat and simmer until almost tender, (this should take about 15 minutes, or a bit longer for barley).

Meanwhile, remove any tough stalks or ribs from the greens or spinach and shred the leaves roughly.

Add the carrot, peas and tinned beans to the broth. Once it returns to a simmer, add the greens or spinach and cook for a further two to three minutes, until just tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then ladle into bowls.

Finish with a generous trickle of olive oil and serve.

Spiced spinach and potatoes

(Serves 4)

400g waxy or new potatoes

400g spinach, stripped of any coarse stems

2tbsp rapeseed or sunflower oil

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

1tsp freshly grated ginger

2tsp garam masala

2-3tbsp double cream or coconut cream (optional)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Halve or quarter larger potatoes so that all the pieces are roughly the same size. Put into a saucepan, cover with water, add salt and bring to the boil. Simmer for eight to 12 minutes, until tender. Drain. (You can use leftover cooked potatoes for this dish too.)

Wash the spinach thoroughly, then pack it, with just the water that clings to it, into a saucepan. Cover and put over a medium heat until the spinach has wilted in its own liquid – just a few minutes. Drain and leave in a colander until cool enough to handle, then squeeze out as much liquid as you can with your hands. Chop the spinach roughly.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and gently sweat the onion for 10 minutes or so, until soft.

Add the garlic, chilli, ginger and garam masala. Cook for a couple of minutes more, then thickly slice the potatoes into the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes before adding the chopped spinach and cook briefly to warm through.

The dish is lovely like this, or you can make it a little richer and more luxurious by stirring in the double cream or coconut cream with the spinach. Either way, season with salt and pepper, and serve.

Red cabbage, parsnip, orange and dates

(Serves 2)

1 large or 2 small oranges

¼ small red cabbage, core removed, finely shredded

1 small-medium parsnip, peeled and coarsely grated

2tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 dates, stones removed, sliced

A couple of sprigs of thyme, leaves only, chopped

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Slice the top and bottom from the orange. Stand it upright on a board and work your way around it with a sharp knife, cutting off the skin and all the pith.

Cut out the segments from between the membranes, working over a bowl to save the juice, letting the segments fall into the bowl. When you’ve finished, squeeze the juice from the remaining membrane into the bowl too.

Put the finely shredded cabbage and grated parsnip into another bowl, add most of the orange juice (not the segments yet) and trickle over the olive oil.

Add a little salt and pepper, toss the lot together with your hands, then transfer to serving plates. Scatter the orange segments and date slices over the red cabbage and parsnip, then finish with a scattering of thyme. Serve straight away.

• River Cottage Veg Everyday by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is published by Bloomsbury, priced £25. Available now