AbomodA

If you could go back in time to when you were born, what advice would you give your Dad? What do you wish he/they had done differently?

I've had completely the opposite experience with cooking times since going vegan.

Sure, you can make a fancy eggplant sandwich from scratch, but you can also just buy vegan deli slices (tofurky brand is ace), or slice and fry some tempeh. There are more varieties of veggie sausages than I can count, many frozen hash browns are vegan, baked beans are usually vegan, as someone else said tofu scramble is quick and easy. You can make a full vegan English breakfast in less time than an omni one, simply because you don't need to cook the 'meat', just heat it.

I wouldn't be satisfied by a veggie stir fry either, but make it a tofu or cashew stir fry? Super satisfying. And you can buy pre marinated tofu to save time. Since tofu is already cooked, you only need to heat it which is much faster than cooking meat(and you don't have to worry about e.coli, salmonella or listeria).

One of the easiest substitutions I've made is switching from ground meat to TVP. It's cheap, very high in protein and nutrients, similar to ground beef in texture and you can add whatever flavour you want to it. It only needs to be rehydrated and heated. So I can whip up a chilli, bolognese, tacos, etc in 10 minutes. It takes longer to fry the onions than to cook the "meat". Not a fan of soy? Use tinned brown lentils.

You're absolutely right that you do need to season dishes. Soy sauce, nutritional yeast, smoke seasoning, stock powder and a wide variety of herbs and spices are great for making delicious food. Luckily, I already had everything except the nutritional yeast, because meat also needs to be seasoned.

There's a lot more to vegan cooking than steamed vegetables. I haven't even mentioned seitan! If you have a specific favourite meal you'd like veganised, just Google "vegan meal recipe". It's probably already been done.