What are some vegetarian tips, tricks, techniques, and crafty ideas you might have in the kitchen?
Try not using tomato sauce for everything for flavor & experience with broths & seasonings. Many vegetarian & vegan broths now come in paper containers and/or cubes. You also can make your own and find many recipes in cookbooks. There are also many seasonings out that are dried and/or fresh.
Tofu..and a show on PBS called Cristina Cooks she is great although all of her food is not vegetarian but she will tell you how to adapt her recipies
give it up man its not worth it. sorry had to try. become creative with spices and try new vegytables, because even if you really love asparagus, its impractical to eat it five nights a week, and boring. Try not to fall into the simple carb pit fall i see alot vegitarians go into. Yeah sure its vegitarian, it'll also make you gain 30lb. Whole grains, fresh fruit, eggs, fakin when all else fails. Oh and dont buy off brand bodka burgers, its not worth saving the money. Buy regular, flame chard kind they sell because all the other ones taste like flavored tofu, which is fine but it dosent taste like burger. Another good sub is mushrooms, they basicly start tasting like everything else in the dish and they have a nice meat like consisitancy. If your a tofu adict, find difrent spice blends, sprinkle them on tofu, and pan fry. Remeber to buy firm tofu, if you dont it'll be mush in the pan.
Pasta,rice, stuffed peppers and salads.
Use vegetables to provide good texture and mouth feel. For example, don't cut tomatoes, eggplant, or other fleshy vegetables into tiny pieces, leave them in 3/4" slices or chunks to enhance taste and give full texture.