My dishes seem the same I have been learning to cook for a little while now, and can make 10+ good looking and tasting meals but I have a problem I am encountering that I notice more and more as I learn new meals.

It seems all my meals (exception of things like soup or salads) break into the same 3 things


A meat (Chicken, Fish, Ham, Steak, Pork, Lamb, ect)
A starch (Either Pasta, Potatoes done some way or Rice)
A few vegetables (Normally do something like carrots and broccoli)


It seems this way with almost any fancy (ish) dish I try to make, since I don't like cooking simple meals since I one day plan to open a restaurant. I am still young and would love to learn more.

Is there other areas of cooking I can look into to break this trend of 1 meat, 1 starch, and 2 veges (or more)?

Or some way of modifying the #2 and #3 things so that it is vastly different enough to provide variety (since the meat is always cooked different ways or in different sauces).

Thanks for any help I get! 

P.S. I should mention I have celiacs so I can't have gluten, but I do generally know all the substitutions in order to make up for it.
Different Cuisines is definitely the way to go.  Many dishes from South America (chile, brazil, argentina) seem truly innovative from an American palette.  Maybe you can gain some excellent insights into these amazing and wonderful cultures through their culinary voyages!

While the meat-vege-starch thing is a staple of a euro-centric diet, something that our privileged positions in society takes a certain advantage of, it's remarkable what you can pull off with the addition of different plating techniques involving sauces and various cooking techniques.