Enjoyable worrying.

While most of my "holy crap I'm going to grad school" worries have not been fun, the one thing I've actually enjoyed "worrying" about has been the decided lack of variety in my cheap & quick cooking category.

I know how to cook these cheap staples:
-pasta
-rice! (without a rice cooker, I might add)
-beans

I can do variations on these themes, though I'm a lot more limited on the bean recipes.
Anyone out there have tips for recipes? (I am a vegetarian.)

P.S. Here's an enjoyable cookbook written by grad students that is fun: Grad Student Cookbook.