I LOVE carrot orange ginger soup -- I'm also very fond of squash and mushroom as well, all very vegan friendly. Penzey's spice makes a vegetable concentrate soup base that gives a lovely umphf to my vegetarian dishes -- and actually improves commercially prepared chicken stock as well. I like the idea of the couscous dish. I was thinking of squash boats with a mix of grain of some sort and dried fruit and nuts, so a very similar idea. And I'm going not to look up Syrian green beans -- that's a classic holiday dish here but I usually dress it with butter and a bread crumb/garlic/parm topping. Thank you!