I used to be vegetarian, sort of.

I tried for a couple of years to avoid animal products, but I wasn’t very good at it. Don’t let ’em fool you. The good vegetarians will tell you that you can basically make any of your old favorite recipes with just a little old fashioned ingenuity and a lot of oddly shaped soy products.

To be fair, if you are willing to compromise your initial expectations, you can create some fairly interesting and tasty dishes out of those “fake meat” products and tofu. But what I have a real appreciation for, and genuinely miss in my diet since my husband is a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore, is a good vegetarian recipe that doesn’t try to pretend to be anything else. I mean, seriously. Tofurkey? Save it. Just give me a good old fashioned black bean quesadilla, or a veggie lasagna, sans breakfast soy crumbles.

When my husband is on the road, I often use that time to make things that he would prefer not to eat. I’m not saying that if I put it in front of him he wouldn’t at least give it a go, but his usual response would be to politely tell me, “If you’re making low-fat spinach lasagna, I’ll just go ahead and grill myself a steak.”

So after I whined earlier this week about not having it in me to cook, I decided that my main problem was the planning. I haven’t been in the mood to do a lot of shopping, and I don’t want to have to thaw meat a day in advance. I mean, what if I’m not in the mood for a pork chop tomorrow?

So I’m taking this opportunity to try some new (and make a few old favorite) veggie recipes, starting with this one, which my sister swears is better than a bath in caramel sauce. Maybe, just to give her a nod, I’ll put it on a whole wheat English muffin.

Speaking of this recipe, let’s talk about Smitten Kitchen. Could this be a cooler cooking site? I really don’t think so. She’s a little fancier than your average cook, which I occasionally appreciate. I’m not always up for the level of “from scratch”ness she offers, but I completely trust her judgment, and I think she is inspiring. I truly learn about cooking from her, from what appliances to get, to how to rethink my same old recipes into something new and far more gourmet or fabulous. And her pictures? Fuggedaboudit.

And then I’m going to make this, and I might even cut the pastry into little heart shapes in honor of my far away, couldn’t-be-less-interested-in-this-particular-blog, Valentine.