When I went vegetarian, I hardly had to change my eating habits at all…the only thing that took getting used to was that I usually have one big dish of food rather than various dishes in a single meal. Works for me though…less dishes to clean up.
I don’t know much about veganism, but I do know that any ovo-lacto vegetarian that eats a reasonably varied diet will have no trouble getting proper nutrients. In order to get protein definciantcy you’d have to seriously try.
What do I eat? Same things that anyone else eats, sans meat. I am a busy college student so most of my meals run towards no-fuss and cheap, so it should be right up your ally.
I eat lots of pasta. I usually keep dried pasta, frozen cheese ravioli and jarred pasta sauce on hand. Sometimes I will make up a big batch of marianara and freeze some, so that I can enjoy yummy sauce whenever I want. I will also occasionally do prepared pesto sauce. I also eat too much mac and cheese for my own good.
Mexican food. Cheese enchiladas, burritos, veggie fajitas. Just about any mexican recipe can be altered not to include meat. Granted the main attraction to me is that it is often smothered in cheese. I also buy lots of frozen bean burritos for lunches and stuff.
I do some Indian food, but much of it is too time intensive for me. Oftentimes I’ll cheat and use boil-in-a-bag Indian meals (called tasty bites…you can get them online at http://www.tastybites.com) over brown rice. Yum.
Occasionally I’ll do stir-fry or ramen based dishes. I’m not to good at it though, so I don’t do it much.
Soup. I practically live off soup. Ministrone, split pea, lentil, vegetarian chili, black bean, potato, plain old veggie soup…it is all so wonderful. I usually make a big pot and eat half and freeze half. I also eat lots of canned soup and chili, but you have to watch out because almost all of it has chicken or beef stock in it. Another great thing about soup is you can serve it over rice and have twice the meal for half the cost. Another fun thing is to make vegetarian chili dogs, with fake hot dogs (you can even omit those all together and just spoon chili over a bun and smother it with onions and cheese).
Beans and rice. There are a million variations, and they are all insanely good for ya. Beans cook really quickly in a pressure cooker, or you could just cheat and used canned beans, which I do quite often. Usually when I make beans I pour in some canned tomato sauce and work from there. I know you don’t like beans much, but it would do you a great service if you learned to like some preparations of them, as they are infinatly cheap and infinatly flexible.
Oh yeah, sandwiches. I make the best mozzerella-tomato-basil sandwiches in the world. Grilled cheese is also a favorite. Finally, I am addicted to Morningstar farms chick patties, and on a near-daily basis I have a chick-patty/mustard sandwhich.
Occasionally I will get fancy and make veggie pot pies, or stuffed zucchini or something elaborate, but that is pretty rare. Most of the time I eat one-pot meals that take half an hour to cook, and utilize plenty of canned and frozen food. Maybe not the ideal way to eat, but I am pretty healthy and certainly a lot healthier than I would be on a fast-food diet. I really do reccomend that you make a trip to a natural foods store, though. The vast array of products availible will blow your mind and please your stomach.
Good luck!