The Return of Meatless Mondays...the sizzling edition!

It has been a long while since we have delved into the word of Meatless Mondays, but from this point on it will be continued, and hopefully even be posted earlier than today so people can try their own versions of the recipes as well. I am also always looking for visitor suggestions and their own photos of recipes, so let me know.

With Spring upon us, and with summer coming up, a lot of people have started breaking out the grill and started summer BBQing. This is usually a meatavore's dream. Time to put raw meat directly in fire and watch it cook. Well, this is usually a problem for vegetarians and vegans. The problem is the whole meat part. Well, I am here to tell you, that many of you already probably know, that grilling veggies on the grill is just as delicious as meat! Well, wonder if you still want a meat type taste. I love grilled veggies, do not get me wrong, but some people (especially new vegetarians, or people that don't want to be left out of the family BBQ) just want something that resembles meat even if it is not.

Well, that is where my experiment a few weeks ago was all about. I had just started grilling, and I thought to myself, how are the so-called "veggie burgers" and "tufo-dogs". I had never had them. I think I have had bocca burgers back in the day (like fifteen years ago), but I feel that healthy eating and vegetarianism and veganism has really stepped up in the last decade or so. So I journeyed to the local store to see what I could find and try them out.

Yves and Gardenburger!I bought two things: Yves Veggie Cuisine Jumbo Dogs and Gardenburger Portabella Veggie burgers. First off let me mention how many different choices there were now in just the "healthy" food section of vegetarian options there were at my Krogers. I was very impressed and surprised to be honest. Regardless, these are the options that I picked, and I was going to grill them up and see how they were.

Both items grilled up very similary to how the real things would grill. One of the Jumbo Dogs broke off a piece and that was a small bummer, but over all they grilled exactly how real hamburgers and hot dogs would grill.

On the grill!Once they came off of the grill, I let them cool, and then prepared them as I would normal hot dogs and hamburgers. On buns with my choices of cheese and condiments. I first tried the Portabella Veggie Burger from Gardenburger, and was honesty surprised with how good it was. My only slight complaint was that it was really thin (as I am used to thick burgers). The portabella taste was really great, and I even enjoyed the pieces of spinach circulating through out the patties. I was pleasantly surprised.

Now, on to try the Jumbo Dogs. The taste was pretty much the taste of a hot dog, even though it wasn't the taste of a superior hot dog. About half way through, I realized what wasn't sitting well with me...it was the texture. It just didn't have the same texture as a hot dog, it was more powdery and crumbly, which in the end kinda grossed me out. I did end up eating them through out the week to finish them up (I hate wasting food), but near the end of the week I was pretty glad that I didn't have to eat anymore of the Yves Jumbo Dogs.

Even though the experiement was about a 50% success, I wouldn't be opposed to trying a different brand of veggie friendly hot dogs, and even some different brands of veggie burgers, even though I liked these pretty well.

Over all I do think that the burgers at least should make any vegetarian BBQ a great experience, even though sometimes you just can't beat straight up grilled veggies (I did grill Eggplant last year, and it was amazing). This is something I continue to be playing around with all summer.

What else do you guys and gals grill out there?! Let me know, take some picutres, and send me a review, always looking for different options!

The finished product!

---Justin J. Stewart