I don’t think vegetarian cooking is harder at all if you’re speaking purely in terms of skill level. I’ve had to spend a significant amount of time rebuilding my recipe list, which makes things harder. Just like with meat-eating, there’s so much easy shit — throw black beans, rice, avocado, pico de gallo and corn on a bed of greens and voila, you’ve got dinner in six minutes. Throw some Gouda and pear slices on some buttered french bread and fry up in the skillet, there’s a great lunch. But there’s also hard shit, like eggplant parmigiana that takes a fuckload of ingredients and time. As far as protein, you can find all kinds of food, from tofu to lentils to broccoli, that are super good for you and super protein dense and filling. Does that help?