They’re easy to cook, right?

We’ll see.

The first thing to remember is that you need right size of frying pan. This is more important than you may think. Too large, and omelet will dry out; too small, and it will not cook through.

As a basic guide, you need a 15 centimeter pan for a two-egg omelet and a 25 centimeter pan for a four to six egg omelet. That is, 6 in. and 10 in. respectively. Which, handily enough, is pretty much size of pans you should have in your kitchen anyway.

The second most important thing is not to beat eggs.

I’ll repeat that for all of those chefs out there who think they can cook omelets: do NOT beat eggs.

Instead, abandon habits of a lifetime and stir yolks into whites using a knife blade. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Rather than resign myself to notion that these dishes could never be converted over to a meatless status, I decided to pull myself up by my vegetarian bootstrings (cotton, of course), and see if I could find a way to convert these meat-ies to meatless.

The first was my Grammy's recipe for American Chop Suey, actually, almost everyone's Grammy made this or some variation of it. I tried different ways but this one comes closest:

Meatless American Chop Suey

1 vidalia onion chopped 1-2 tbsp. butter 1/2 pkg Quorn (brandname) veggie grounds frozen 2 cans Campbells Tomato Soup 1 tblsp. catsup (yes catsup, you can't really taste it, it just adds a rich color to sauce) sea salt and pepper to taste

1 lb of your favorite fancy pasta in its rigati form, that means with lines, or something like like gemelli or rotini

Melt butter in a medium sized skillet over low heat. Add vidalia onion and gently saute until translucent. Add frozen Quorn grounds and heat till thawed. Add 2 cans soup and cook over low heat for 5-7 minutes. Add catsup salt and pepper and cook an additional 102 minutes.

Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Drain thoroughly and add sauce to pasta. Stir to incorporate completely. Serve. Serves 4-6 people as a side.

This next one is an adaptation of a Greek-Middle-Eastern recipe for Dolma. I loved this dish as a youngster summering on Cape Cod. A wonderful Lebanese family "turned me on" to this dish and I have finally found a way to make it meatless and spectacular!