Not to knock pasta (and I recommend my signature sauce, as well as putting artichokes through the blender and adding them to cream sauces for pasta), but I’m more of a soup fan. Bean soup, veggie soup (here’s one way to do veggie soup), eggdrop soup, chowder (clam if you eat seafood, broccoli or corn if you don’t), polenta leaf soup, miso soup.
There’s also more things you can put in sandwiches besides mushrooms. I like Tofurkey, but even if you don’t, here are things I put on bread (all of these things include cheese, but you could omit it if you aren’t a huge fan of cheese):
Panfried tofu slices, spinach sauteed with cheese, hummus
Goat cheese, avocado slices, over-easy egg with dill and cayenne
Particularly copious amounts of cheese (melted), with optional hummus, avocado, onion slices
Fried zucchini and eggplant slices, avocado, hummus, fresh mozzarella
Minced garlic, basil leaves, fresh mozzarella
In most of the above cases I make the sandwiches open-faced, and fry them in butter to crisp them up (the last I put in the toaster oven with olive oil, and add the basil and mozzarella after they come out toasty).
Many veggies are lovely roasted. For pretty much all of them, you cut them into bites, put them on an oil-spritzed baking pan, and put them in a 400º oven for twenty minutes. This works for several kinds of squash, asparagus, broccoli, potatoes, etc. You can eat roasted veggies by themselves, or put them in omelets or your pasta or whatever.
I go on Foodgawker for inspiration. For advanced food-related fun, learn to deep fry things—I use my wok and spider skimmer, I don’t usually bother with a thermometer and just flick little bits of whatever I’m cooking to see how it reacts, and then I filter the oil for reuse with paper towels and a funnel.
Not to knock pasta (and I recommend my signature sauce, as well as putting artichokes through the blender and adding them to cream sauces for pasta), but I’m more of a soup fan. Bean soup, veggie soup (here’s one way to do veggie soup), eggdrop soup, chowder (clam if you eat seafood, broccoli or corn if you don’t), polenta leaf soup, miso soup.
There’s also more things you can put in sandwiches besides mushrooms. I like Tofurkey, but even if you don’t, here are things I put on bread (all of these things include cheese, but you could omit it if you aren’t a huge fan of cheese):
Panfried tofu slices, spinach sauteed with cheese, hummus
Hummus, avocado, shredded cheddar, cucumber slices, sprouts, lettuce
Goat cheese, avocado slices, over-easy egg with dill and cayenne
Particularly copious amounts of cheese (melted), with optional hummus, avocado, onion slices
Fried zucchini and eggplant slices, avocado, hummus, fresh mozzarella
Minced garlic, basil leaves, fresh mozzarella
In most of the above cases I make the sandwiches open-faced, and fry them in butter to crisp them up (the last I put in the toaster oven with olive oil, and add the basil and mozzarella after they come out toasty).
Many veggies are lovely roasted. For pretty much all of them, you cut them into bites, put them on an oil-spritzed baking pan, and put them in a 400º oven for twenty minutes. This works for several kinds of squash, asparagus, broccoli, potatoes, etc. You can eat roasted veggies by themselves, or put them in omelets or your pasta or whatever.
I go on Foodgawker for inspiration. For advanced food-related fun, learn to deep fry things—I use my wok and spider skimmer, I don’t usually bother with a thermometer and just flick little bits of whatever I’m cooking to see how it reacts, and then I filter the oil for reuse with paper towels and a funnel.