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2 cups cooked basmati, brown, or boxed

vegan Spanish rice

4 (8-in.) flour tortillas

½ cup vegan refried beans

1 cup vegan shredded cheddar cheese

Your choice layers (avocados, pitted and

sliced black or green olives, tomatoes,

mangoes, pickled jalapeño peppers or carrots,

or canned mild green chiles)

½ cup vegan sour cream

1 cup iceberg lettuce, shredded

Yield: 4 burritos

Prep time: 10 to 20 minutes

Cook time: 25 minutes

Serving size: 1 burrito

1. Cook rice according to package directions. Drain if necessary.

2. Spread ½ of one side of each tortilla with 1 tablespoon refried beans, ¼ cup vegan cheddar cheese, ½ cup rice, and any other toppings you like. Wrap ⅓ of tortilla onto itself, and sprinkle with a few shreds of cheese to seal as you wrap the other ⅓ on top of that.

3. Spray a cast-iron skillet with high-heat nonstick vegetable spray, and heat over medium-high heat. Add burritos to the pan, and fry for 3 minutes. Flip over burritos, and fry for 2 more minutes.

4. Remove burritos from the pan, and place on individual plates. Open slowly to allow steam to escape. (Burritos will be hot!) Spread 1 tablespoon vegan sour cream on inside flap of each tortilla, sprinkle ¼ cup lettuce in each center, and allow each person to layer individual burrito with cold fillings (avocados, tomatoes, mangoes, for example). Serve with salsa and more vegan sour cream if desired.

That’s So Vegan

Have a competition with your kids and count who has the highest number of layers in their burrito (nine is our family’s record-size burrito). Now that’s what we call healthy competition!

Chapter 14

Delicious Dinners

In This Chapter

◆ Sit-down vegan dinners

◆ Vegan for the holidays

◆ Parties, potlucks, and cookouts, vegan-style

Mealtime is a great time to reconnect and refuel—as long as everyone’s happily eating! If you have unhappy eaters at the dinner table, power struggles are bound to happen. Our wish for your family is that the words “You will sit here until you eat all that tofu loaf!” will never be uttered at dinnertime in your home again. The trick is to find vegan meals that are simple to make, that are healthful, and that everyone likes.

This chapter supplies ideas for easy dinners at home, including quick weeknight buffet-style dinners, one-pot dinners, down-home comfort foods, and our family’s holiday favorites. We also suggest some crowd-pleasing appetizers, potluck favorites, and tips on navigating the next neighborhood cookout.

So ring the bell, have a seat, and grab your fork. It’s dinnertime!

Peaceful Family Meal Times

According to recent studies, kids whose families eat meals together more often than not have better physical and mental health, perform at a higher level in school, and are happier teens than kids whose families don’t eat together often. Also, it may be common sense simply proven by studies, but we now know that kids pick up most of their attitudes about eating from their parents. The kinds of foods you eat, your portion sizes, and your attitudes about eating impact your child’s choices more than anyone else’s. Vegan parents, that’s good news!

That said, most kids have their own distinct taste and texture preferences and may not always like what’s for dinner. Be flexible. The best vegan family recipes are ones that include ingredients that kids can easily leave off or take out of their plate or bowl, or that the adults can add in after cooking a milder version for the kiddos. For example, a dinnertime taco or burrito bar is a great way to give your picky eater the option of just beans, rice, and vegan cheese in her taco, while giving the more adventuresome kids and adults free reign to stuff jalapeños, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, caramelized onions, and taco sauce in with the beans and rice.

If dinner consists of a recipe your child dislikes, serve some of his favorite side dishes that nutritionally equal the main dish. Say you’re serving lentil loaf, which everyone in your family but him likes. You know he loves mashed potatoes