We had some last night. I marinated them in olive oil, garlic and assorted herbs and spices then grilled them like hamburgers.

We've also stuffed them with spinach or cheese (if you eat dairy).

They're delicious, versatile and robust.

And, loving to cook, I developed a chicken tikka masala in which I replaced the small, feathered dinosaur with as many kinds of mushrooms as I could find. I have some favorite secret mushroom hunting grounds so often we’d have fresh native fungus.

Basically garlic, lotsa ginger, the requisite spices, coconut milk, chickpeas, tomato, mushrooms, spicy peppers and sweet peppers, whatever else is in the frig and a heap of freshly steamed basmati, manakish and yogurt. In a pinch I’d use store-bought tikka in the jar you can get for a few bucks. Make enough and it’ll last until Wednesday (Sunday was kitchen day - it’s mah church).

- Leo

I make dals in big batches and them freeze them in quantities suitable for two people. Also, a lot of common northern Indian sauces (most Indian restaurants in this area are Punjabi) can be made without meat, usually by cooking paneer - a mild Indian cheese - in the same sauces. The last Indian buffet I went to actually had a mushroom dish similar to what you describe!

But I’d always do a fusion of things: I lived with people from all over eastern Europe, Asia and the ME (and South and Central America) so diversity was key. Mediterranean food was pretty much the most satisfactory cumulative conclusion for blending culture and food in diversity. We by-in-large, as a group of 65 people from around the world, could enjoy empanadas, papusas, shawarmas, tandoor, sticky rice and sushi, bulgogi and everyone loves lavash with olives and babaganouche, tahini and hummus.

I always liked when my Hungarian friends would share Hungarian beer, Unicum and gulyás.

It’s good to explore!

Saute whatever veggies you have in the fridge: onions, green peppers, mushrooms, tomato chunks, etc. Add a little taco seasoning. Fill the taco shells with the mixture and top with cheese. Warm in the oven until the tacos are crispy and cheese is melted. Top with salsa or sour cream.

eggplant. We grow the Japanese variety.

Do you think eggplant cut in long strips would be a good addition.

You don’t have to peel it. Long strips are good. If you want to do it the traditional style you steam them first to soften them a little (but not too much) and then stir fry in lots of garlic and ginger in a wok as hot as you can get it to sear the outside. Add green onions, hot peppers etc as you like. Soy and miren or dark soy and a thickener like cornstarch as a sauce added at the end at low heat. You can skip the steaming and just fry them longer.

It's a great wok. I use it all the time and not just for stir fry

Gets really hot really fast.

https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/woks-skillets-deep-fryers/bew600.html

Mung Dahl aka mung beans aka yellow lentils are an interesting egg replacement.

Inspect and rinse 1 cup of mung dahl. Put them in a bowl along with about 3 tablespoons of raw cashews and add enough water to cover. Let them soak overnight in the fridge. The next morning drain them and then put them in a blender with 1 cup of water, 3/4 tsp black salt, 1/2 teaspoons regular salt, 1/4 teaspoon turmeric, 1/4 or more teaspoons ground black pepper. Blend until smooth.

You need 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the batter per serving. Fry in a nonstick or oiled cast iron pan at medium heat, covered, for 1-3 minutes per side.

The black salt is essential as it adds a mildly sulphurous taste. It can be found in Indian grocery stores and is also known as kala namak.

Plain is good but adding about 1/4 cup of chopped veggies is better. Start frying them first for a minute or two, then pour the batter on top.

The batter will keep well in the fridge.

Ingredients:
onions, garlic, tomatoes, Jamican Jerk Spices, vegetable broth, sweet potatoes, green beans and any type of bean. I have made it with black beans myself.

Saute the onions and garlic in some olive oil; when they are tender add the spices and stir to coat the onions well. Add broth and tomatoes; stir up a bit to mix the spices then add the sweet potatoes, cut up like any potatoes for stew. Bring to a boil then lower the heat and simmer until the potatoes are getting soft. Add the beans (I use canned beans, drained and rinsed). Break up the fresh green beans and add to the pot; cover and let simmer until the beans are done. Serve over rice cooked with fat free coconut milk instead of water. You can substitute fresh spinach for the green beans.
When I make it with beef I always use the green beans. You can change up the spices too; I have used made it Indian style with appropriate spices & Cajun style with cajun spices.

I got this recipe from a Weight Watchers cookbook.

We also like lentils and rice with Indian style spices. I saute onions with the spices then add water and other vegetables, such as summer squash, celery, green beans. When everything is done, cook some butter (or ghee if you have it) with a bunch of chopped garlic. We usually add the butter and garlic to our own serving instead of pouring it over the entire dish.
The basic recipe was given to me by a Pakistani friend many years ago.

When we found out how easy it was to make falafel at home, we started eating it all the time. We make a salad of shredded Asian cabbage and radicchio dressed with a tahini-based dressing, some homemade hummus, garnish with some olives and some of our homemade turnip pickles (shawarma style with beets so they're bright pink). It is our lunch more days than not. Sometimes we add sliced tomatoes (seasonally) and a little bit of feta cheese (but that stops it from being vegan).

Ingredients

3 whole medium eggplants
4 tbsp. tahini (or more to taste)
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/4 c. lemon juice
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil (good quality)
1/3 c. fresh parsley, minced

Directions
1. Prick the surface of each eggplant several times with the tines of a fork. (This is important!)

2. On the grill or under the broiler, set to high, blacken or char the eggplant for 25 minutes or so. You want the skin to be completely shriveled and dark, and the eggplant almost fall-apart tender. Just when you think it’s shriveled, let it go another 5 minutes. Set them aside to cool slightly. (And definitely do not undercook the eggplant. Your Baba Ganoosh will be bitter and awful!)

3. When cool, peel off the skin enough to get a spoon into each eggplant and scrape out the flesh into a bowl. Try to get as much as you can, even the stuff that’s stuck to the inside of the skin. (This process is a total mess, so don’t worry.)
Mash the eggplant with a fork. A few large chunks are fine, but try to get it to a relatively smooth texture without being totally pureed. (I actually like it really smooth in the food processor.)

4. Add in all other ingredients, stirring and tasting before adjusting the seasonings or other ingredients. Don’t undersalt!

Serve with pita triangles, baguette slices, chips, crusty French bread… or with a spoon.

3/4 Cup dried green lentils
1 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups cold water
4 small-medium potatoes
3/4 Cup finely chopped onion
3 cloves minced garlic
1/4 fresh, chopped herbs (parsley, basil, tarragon, whatever you like)
3 Tbsp. minced scallion
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. pepper

Boil lentils with salt till tender, about 45 min.

Boil potatoes till tender but not too soft

Cut potatoes into 3/8” slices

Whisk the oil and vinegar together

Gently combine lentils potatoes in a bowl and pour in the o/v mix
(best done when potatoes are still warm)

Add everything else to the bowl and gently toss.

Salt and Pepper to taste

Serve immediately
————————

This is how the recipe reads, but I dice the potatoes into medium-sized cubes before boiling.

my pantry w/ some 'standards' (eg. I've never used nutritional yeast).

nutritional yeast is often used in vegan recipes because it's one of the few natural sources of B vitamins that are essential for humans. If you eat dairy or even a small amount of meat it's not as important. You can also increase or decrease the amount of an ingredient with little effect on the finished dish.*

I sometimes think recipe writers are trying to sell exotic ingredients. I came across one last week that called for a specific variety of a Middle Eastern pepper, and I was not going to buy a package of it just for that recipe. So I substituted a ground pepper that I happened to have on hand, and the dish came out well. And your 'standards' may not be the same as my 'standards': I tend to cook Mexican, Indian, and East Asian influenced dishes, so my spice cupboard leans towards spices used in those cuisines. I can tell difference between various types of rice, but I just keep two on hand because I'm running a home kitchen, not a restaurant or grocery store. With practice you'll learn what ingredients are important to what you cook.

*But if you leave the chili powder out of the chili you have to ask what's the point, to paraphrase Peg Bracken, who wrote the "I Hate to Cook Book" in 1960 and influenced a lot of my thinking. It's worth reading her humorous take on cooking if you can find a copy (it was reissued sometime in the 2000s), but the recipes are, shall we say, of their time.

I originally found this in the old Greens cookbook. It's a stew made with squash, corn, and beans. Sometimes I add chiles or tomatoes if I feel like it.

Dinner tonight is a frittata made with eggs, onion, mustard greens, rice, and maybe cheese. I cheat and brown it under the broiler rather than trying to flip it and get all of it back in the pan!

A lunch standby chez moi is tostadas enchiladas. Open a can of refried beans and heat. While it's warming up, fry some tortillas until crisp. When they're cool enough to handle, smear a goodly amount of the beans on each tortilla, top with chopped lettuce or diced tomatoes or pickled jalapenos or minced onion or olives or salsa or whatever you find in the fridge.

During Covid lockdown I got decent at making kimchi pancakes: chop a cup of kimchi (including the liquid), mix with about the same amount of wheat or rice flour (I use a combination of the two), add water if needed to thin to the consistency of a pancake batter and let stand for an hour or so. The pour into a lightly oiled skillet and cook until the edges turn dry, as you would for a pancake.


My stand-by vegetarian cookbooks are Molly Katzen's "The Moosewood Cookbook" (all of her books have some good recipes), Deborah Madison's Greens cookbooks, and various Indian ones. I like reading Bryant Terry's vegan cookbooks, although I haven't cooked from them. I recommend checking out your local library (or youtube, if you're more visually oriented), checking out a few, and seeing which ones fit best with your cooking philosophy.

Freeze medium or firm tofu. Thaw it, then freeze it again. Thaw and squeeze out the liquid. Cut into chunks and soak in vegetable broth for a few minutes. Dredge in seasoned four and fry.

Potatoes, cauliflower and peas. A veggie broth to cook all in (adding peas last) and maybe coconut milk to help with creaminess and as thickening.

Cauliflower steaks on the grill or under broiler. Sprinkle generously with steak rub and cut thick enough that it doesn’t fall apart easily.

Dirty rice with black beans added and maybe some crumbled Boca burger or other meat substitute.

Tom Kha Thai soup. Many recipes call for chicken broth and chicken but can sub veg broth and use a lot of different veg. I use ginger instead of galangal too.

A Szechuan veggie stir fry. Use real Szechuan peppercorn for ultimate flavor and numbing heat. Be sure to use the peppercorn properly as it needs to be sorted to get skins off.

Bon Appetit!

If I am grazing an Indian buffet, I always get it

I have only once followed a recipe. (For west African peanut stew.)
I was done & then spent another half hour adding more & different spices, because what the recipe made was BORING.
I've made it since & wiped that recipe from my mind.
If I had to bake, I naturally would follow a recipe. Which is why I don't bake!
As to your question, anything with mushroom, tofu, & a root vegetable could be seasoned into a really good meat free dish.
Oyster mushrooms are an interesting alternative to portobello. Different texture, a but more earthy.

amtrak had a killer vegetarian lasagna. when when we ate in the dining car, it was one of my fave goto meals .

Been a vegetarian for nearly 50 years and this is a staple in my rotation.

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a57497/bang-bang-cauliflower-recipe/

I am absolutely not a vegetarian in my personal life, but I love this recipe and think it's excellent for any kind of pot luck, since the odds are high that various vegetarians will be there. I don't quite comprehend vegan, so I have no clue if this might also be vegan. In any case, enjoy!

Butter Bean Salad from Rachael Ray

2 cans butter beans, rinsed and drained, 15 ounces each
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/3 palm full
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large lemon, juiced
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

This can easily be cut in half, or doubled, depending you what you need.

My favorite cookbook is still Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet. Some of my favorite recipes are from that cookbook, and some of them I've modified over the years.

Other favorites are recipes I created to simulate foods I grew up with, like grandma's chicken and dumplings, to make it healthier and without chicken. (Hint: Nutritional yeast works well for flavor in a recipe modification where the original recipe was chicken-based, like this, or soup. If it was beef-based, try adding a bit of soy sauce.) Don't be afraid to experiment with family favorite recipes!

Other cookbooks on my shelf that I like include The Moosewood Cookbook, Laurel's Kitchen, and even The Joy of Cooking (a great resource for basic recipes to modify).

I have recipes that are new family favorites I've come up with myself, and so will you if you branch out and experiment with your recipes.