Red lentil Dahl is our favorite, due to how easy and flavorful it is to make. Combine with rice or quinoa if you really want a more complete plate look and feel 👍

Heck anything quinoa based is good as its a complete protein and amazingly delicious fast and fun 😍

You can even make 'patties' from cooked quinoa and blended carrots, onions, whatever veggies you like and a little binder (eggs, cornstarch, whatever) that are easy to sear in a pan and enjoy all by themselves! 😁 

Also never thought I would say this but Dede that was a beautiful post, a feast for us vegetarians, thank you! 🤤

Thank you for suggesting dal, but dal is south asian cuisine which is something I'm trying to avoid, since the spices/ingredients aren't easy to find where I am.

I'd be very interested in North American/South American/European vegetarian that doesn't use fake meat. African might be interesting too.

An unexpected love of mine is a Filipino dish called pinakbet.  It's basically a bunch of sauteed vegetables with a little fish sauce or shrimp paste.  I can pretty much live on this and rice.

Halloumi cheese is a fun option.  It basically doesn't melt so you can grill it like meat.  There are a bunch of Mediterranean dishes that use it.  I make little lettuce wraps with it and grated carrots and pickled radishes.

I pretty regularly do tofu in stir fry type dishes.  I find it best in strong flavored and saucy dishes like Kung Pao.  Keep the tofu chunks smaller so they can be better flavored by the sauce.  Also, fry up the tofu a bit first like you would meat.  Lots of folks seem to see tofu as already cooked and just toss it in with everything else.  Getting a little brown crust on it first makes a huge difference in taste and texture.