Now's a good time to learn then (when they will forget your mistakes.)

Rather than specific dishes, focus on techniques. Learn to make pan sauces and your food immediately goes up several levels. Be generous with herbs and spices (those little pots you get in supermarkets are not supposed to last long). Serve white rice on the side and mix noodles in to the dish (pasta is a kind of noodle). Learn to make stock and bone broths, if you cook a whole chicken you can serve the best cuts as part of the meal, save the rest for a stir-fry or sandwiches and you can use the bones and connective tissue to create a broth that you can freeze for later. Vegetable soups are also great and can use up all sorts of bits and pieces. In cold weather you can put them in a thermos as a hot packed lunch.

If you want to make something sweet, store bought rolls of filo pastry can be quite good these days, add some fruit, fresh or tinned, and cook.

Experiment, most importantly. If you don't know how to cook with something, find people from where it comes from and see what they are doing with it.