EAT, DRINK

 »Becoming a Vegetarian Family

Take Advantage of Tortillas

If you'd asked me six months ago what I was eating for dinner, it would have involved red meat.

I say this with certainty because we ate beef or pork at least five times a week with chicken and fish the other two days.

Then came January 1, 2005. We decided to try becoming a vegetarian family. That's two grown-ups and two preschoolers.

Many friends and extended family members are shaking their heads at this decision. But now that we are almost six months in, things are going pretty well. We have not yet become full vegetarians. Compared to our pre-January eating habits, though, we now have meat once or twice a week, and it is normally fish. We may have beef once a month. All in all, we're learning to be plant-centred.

Actually, encountering that word in a book by vegetarian writer Joanne Stepaniuk made a big difference for me. The goal of being plant-centred doesn't require abstinence from meat. Since our reasons for attempting a vegetarian lifestyle were primarily for health and environmental reasons, we may never pass the test for strict vegetarianism.

Change, however, doesn't come easily. The kids have struggled somewhat with the new diet. One kid eats like an eco-terrorist already, so he's happy with a lot of raw vegetables and no meat. However, he also has no interest in tofu or baked beans, which leaves me worrying about his protein intake. The other child is a direct opposite. She eats most of what is placed in front of her, except raw vegetables. She likes tofu, although she believes it to be cheese, and she loves baked beans.

The real problem is the adults. We run out of vegetarian dinner ideas quickly. For instance, soybean "meat" that seems like hamburger worked for us for a while, but we're getting tired of spaghetti with sauce every week.

This space is for injecting new ideas into a vegetarian lifestyle. My aim is to discuss kid-friendly and adult-satisfying vegee meals that have made our switch to a plant-centred lifestyle easier.

When grappling with the issue of what to cook for dinner recently, I encountered a great find. It seems kid-friendly, although, as usual only one of my children would touch it. As well, these Stacked Tortillas satisfied the adult palates as well. I have adapted the recipe, provided below, from Didi Emmons' Vegetarian Planet (Harvard Common Press, 1997).

Stacked Tortillas

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil (for frying)
• 1 red onion sliced thin
• 1 large portabella mushroom sliced thin (use the cap too)
• 2 carrots, cut into thin strips
• 1 cup of pepper strips (any color, mix them for an interesting look)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• a sprinkle of black pepper (not much since my kids hate pepper)
• a cup of grated cheese (I used mozzarella and cheddar, but most hard cheeses are fine)
• 6 regular sized flour tortillas (corn is ok too)
• plain yogurt and salsa for a decorative and tasty topping
• chives or other tasty herbs for topping

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onion and sauté it over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes. Add mushroom, carrots and peppers. Cook for about ten minutes until the veggees are slightly browned.
2. Place two tortillas on the oven racks without overlapping. Bake them for a couple of minutes until they are hard. Take them out and put them on a plate.
3. Place the baked tortillas on a cookie sheet. Put a spoonful or two of the sauted vegees on with a sprinkle of grated cheese on top. Then top with another tortilla. Repeat the vegees and cheese on the second level tortilla and top with a third. You can go up as many layers as you like, but I stopped here.
4. Bake the stacked tortillas in the oven until the cheese is melted, about ten minutes. Bring them out, top with yogurt, salsa and fresh chives and serve them.

On its own, this dish is not enough for an evening meal, but you can combine it with soup, salad or something else. The mushrooms give the same satisfying sensation as meat does, so you get a hearty feeling from this dish.