Beef. Apparently it's always supposed to be for dinner, even for vegetarians.

I recently received the latest issue of Vegetarian Times in the mail and was pleasantly surprised at the number of actual “vegetarian” recipes contained therein. I’ve made two recipes out of it, which is about two more than I normally make. It’s not that I don’t like cooking vegetarian meals, it’s just I feel they have gotten away from recipes I feel are worthy of print in a cooking magazine.

I’m sick of seeing recipes that are nothing more than a cop out catering to convenience. To me that’s the antithesis of what a cooking magazine is all about. Cooking magazines should cater to someone who enjoys spending time in the kitchen, not people that want to get out of there as fast as they can. Unless it’s Rachael Ray’s (totally not healthy ) Veggie Meals, there should be actual recipes that require some sort of effort.

I'm speaking about recipes with titles like “Super Bowl Sunday Brats” or “Chicken Noodle Soup.” Both of these are just your basic recipe with a faux meat added. Now, I don’t have a problem at all with faux meats. As a matter of fact, I absolutely love tofu dogs and as soon as our budget increases, I intend to start purchasing them again. But when a cooking magazine starts including them in recipes, I must draw the line! Way too often I’ll see a “recipe” for vegetarian chorizo tacos in the magazine and one of the ingredients is “vegetarian chorizo.” Seriously, I needed a magazine to tell me how to make the exact same recipe for chorizo tacos that you can find anywhere and the only difference is that you tell me to use “vegetarian chorizo!” What I expect when I see that recipe title is a recipe telling me HOW TO MAKE VEGETARIAN CHORIZO!”

The same thing goes for vegetarian lasagna. Don’t give me recipe for veggie lasagna and make the only difference between it and the one found in the “Joy of Cooking” is some sort of processed faux meat!

I’m not saying not to use the variety of faux meats out there. I’m just saying that if I buy a cooking magazine that touts vegetarian recipes, don’t tell me to put a tofu dog on a bun, I already know how to do that.