I have been a vegetarian for 18 years, or, in the words of the rest of the pop5 crew, I "need to join the food chain." I have slowly been getting into eating many of the new soy products made to resemble meat; I have been trying new ones every few weeks. They are all Morningstar Farms products, because my first good experience with veggie burgers was one of theirs:

These are really good, and they totally changed my expectations of what a "fake meat" product could be like. Before this, my experience wth veggie burgers was limited to the kind of Gardenburger/mushroom and breadcrumb type affairs, which in my opinion are nasty and disgusting. Anyway, these are good both with typical burger accoutrements, and in a southwest style, with salsa. To me, they taste a little more of Indian spices than standard southwest, but it works.

The next thing I tried was the Veggie Bacon strips, which I had heard were pretty good from several people. In my opinion, the Veggie strips are more of a bacon-flavored cracker than an actual bacon imitation. They do taste like bacon (like the similarly all-soy Bac'o Bits), but the texture is flat and crispy, with none of the chewiness the fat provides real bacon. This is ok with me; I always liked crispy bacon better than chewy. They are also a little temperamental to cook. I have discovered that the best way to cook them is to microwave them on a paper plate, or a plate with a paper towel beneath the strips, for slightly less time than the package recommends. They tend to stick to the paper, but if you wait for them to cool, you can peel them off. The Bacon strips also get high marks from me. I usually eat them as a quick and tasty snack to get more protein.

I just recently tried the Honey Mustard flavored Chik'n tenders, which I unfortunately cannot recommend. I think the main problem with them was the honey mustard flavoring, which didn't provide any real flavor, but did smell kind of nasty. The actual strips didn't taste like much of anything but breading. The fake "chik'n" was chewy, but almost totally tasteless. Although I didn't like them in this context, I could imagine getting some not-honey-mustard-flavored ones and maybe trying to make a "chik'n" parmegiana. I think using them in a recipe that provided a lot of flavor for them might be the best way to go.