Meat for a vegetarian

As a vegetarian, there are times I want to be able to have a quick meal of burgers or hot dogs and fries. No, I do not want meat, but there are times it is nice to be able to just make a quick meal or healthier comfort food. Sure black beans and rice or lentils and rice can be comfort foods and I do like them a lot, but they are not as quick, at times as I would like. And it is nice to be able to use meat substitutes in recipes, so I tend to use veggie burgers or tofu pups or fake meat. Most of these fake meat things are just not very good, sometimes they taste weird and/or have a weird texture and sometimes they are just plain disgusting. I do eat fish, but the salmon burgers I have tasted are as bad as the veggie burgers. I do eat veggie burgers at times and they are OK, I have found I like Morningstar Farms stuff the best, but really these are only really sad imitations. When i am really lucky I am able to find restaurants who make their own veggie burgers like this place or this place. But really places that make their own veggie burgers and do not just use the same frozen patties you find in the grocery store are few and far between. But then something happens, you find a veggie meat product at the grocery store that is truly good. Well, I found one that I really like. The Trader Joe's Italian Sausage, GG and I had tried a little sample at the store a few weeks ago and thought it was pretty good, so we decided to get some and use them in a recipe. We made some of the sausage in some pasta sauce and put it over pasta. It was good, really good in fact, but the sauce was really good so maybe that was the reason they tasted so good. So, GG got the sausages again to try in Italian sausage sandwiches with some onions and peppers maybe. Well, we finally decided to have the Italian sausage, but no onions or peppers so just sausage on bread with some ketchup and mustard. MMMMMMMM...well the sausage was still really good. I was so happy and now will have to think about keeping this Italian sausage from Trader Joe's in the house for when we want a sandwich or to put in soups or in pasta etc. It seems so simple to just find a way to put good flavoring in the sausage, the herbs in Italian sausage is not exactly a secret and yet no one else has figured out how to do it, except whatever brand TJ's throws their label on.

So for those of you who are vegetarian or semi-vegetarian or who just want a lower fat alternative to regular Italian sausage try the Trader Joe's brand as a good alternative.