Vegetarian Enchilada Pie

This is my riff on a Utah standby Chicken Enchilada Pie, that my dear friend Nicole taught me how to make back in Ohio in 1995. The Chicken version layered tortillas with sour cream, cream of chicken soup, sauteed onions, cheese, and cooked chicken. My new version, adapted to vegetarian tastes and my progress at Weight Watchers (25 pounds down, yay!) is a different kind of yummy, and it has that quality I love about a good casserole: leftovers that last in the fridge, handy for lunching or snacks for me and other adults in the house for the days that follow.

I hear Nicole's in China now. She's lived around the world since our days in Ohio. She's such an excellent cook (and seamstress and business manager) I wonder what great things she's done since our daughters were small.

1.5 to 2 TB oil
1 medium summer squash
1 medium-small zucchini
1 red bell pepper
red or other onion, half a large
8-10 oz mushrooms
half a pound frozen corn kernels
2 1/2 cups shredded cheese
5-7 corn tortillas, which tend to be small.
28-ounce can of enchilada sauce, I like the green kind.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350F, because that's how to cook any casserole.

2. dice up small the vegetables, medium-high heat the oil in the pan, then add the vegetables and saute. Here you can see the proportions.

Oh, I forgot to add the mushrooms and corn. I buy the pre-sliced mushrooms, and then chop them further from there. The corn really ought to be microwave cooked first, but I just threw it in the pan, slowing down and reducing the quality of the vegetables cooking. Oh well.

Now it's all mixed together. I really love the colors--this is why one of my Christmas side dishes for years was zucchini-bell.pepper-corn.

Now that's cooked; it's time to layer. Cover the bottom of the pan with 1/4 of the sauce, layer two tortillas, half of the vegetables, and another dose of sauce, and some (1/3 of) cheese.

Let's peek ahead with this layers diagram for the finished casserole. The fraction is how much of that item to put in that layer.

cheese (1/3)

sauce (1/4)

tortillas (1/3)

cheese (1/3)

sauce (1/4)

vegetables (1/2)

tortillas (1/3)

cheese (1/3)

sauce (1/4)

vegetables (1/2)

tortillas (1/3)

sauce (1/4)

\________pan________/

Here I'm in process covering those first tortillas with my first layer of veggies.

Sauce on the second layer, and repeat as before.

Cheese going on just before another layer of tortilla. If I'm going to use cheese, I use real cheese, not reduced-fat stuff. It doesn't take much (relative to what I used to do, perhaps) to give it that cheese-in-mix taste. I would have loved a Jack cheese here, but was happy to use the sharp cheddar that was in the house. I think it really adds to the nourishing deliciousness of the meal to use what I have.

And on that front, I wasn't stopped by the fact I only had five corn tortillas in the house. I tore the last one into pieces and spread it around for the top layer thus.

Last layer of sauce and cheese.

Cover and bake the standard 350F for 30 minutes. This pretty dish (from IKEA years ago) didn't have a lid, so I used foil.

And it's done! I suppose you could remove the foil at the end, if you want the cheese browned as well as bubbly, but for me this is good. Too often I burn the cheese at the end trying to do that. Feel free to send me an acetylene torch.

Was delish, and delish as leftovers for a couple days. Loved and appreciated by everyone over the age of 16--probably could have won the heart of the younger teen if it didn't fall into the inaccurately-named category "Mexican Food." Apparently my love of all things bean, cheese, and tortilla more than met her quota five years ago.

But never mine.

They've been vegetarian longer than me

A few months ago I discovered an email list of Vegetarian Mormons.  It's not high traffic, but friendly with lots of ideas.  For example, right now there's some emails being exchanged on vegan food storage.  I wasn't on the list a week when I learned that Protein Combining (eating a vegetable with a whole grain, frex, at each meal to get a "complete protein") is unnecessary.  Which everyone else figured out in 1988.

MormonVeg is a discussion forum for Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) who wish to understand the reasons to reduce the consumption of meat and other animal products or get help in doing so. Participants do NOT have to be vegetarian, vegan, or even LDS to subscribe or participate actively. A genuine interest is all that's necessary.  (emphasis mine)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MormonVeg/
I won't be reposting any of their emails here or elsewhere, of course.  That would not be cool.

Ward Chili Cook-off

Do I dare take a vegetarian chili? I live where people are definitely meat eaters.
I was thinking of calling it "Word of Wisdom Chili", including in it lentils and bulghur.
Or is it an exercise in futility, with people only thinking ever more weird things about me?

Being Vegetarian in the Family--The Ward Family, that is.

When you bring another family dinner, because you found out about their situation in Relief Society and signed up to bring a meal, do you bring a vegetarian meal?

When you go to the Ward Potluck, do you bring a vegetarian dish?

The Potluck is easier than the "compassionate service." You can entirely sidestep the issue by bringing dessert or rolls. Usually several people bring carbohydrate-based eats that are vegetarian by chance.

I think it's cool to bring a full-meal vegetarian green salad, maybe with little squares of firm tofu tossed in with the dark greens, chopped vegetables, and balsamic vinaigrette. Or, at least I hope someone else brought one. Yum.

Bringing a meal to a particular family is a little trickier. My purpose is to serve, not to educate, and certainly not to browbeat. When I was a full-time vegetarian in a full-time vegetarian family, I often brought meatless lasagna with green salad and bread, and chocolate cake. I wanted to bring something familiar, and something the kids would eat. Sometimes I would just make them a meat lasagna while I made my meatless ones.

Two meals that were brought to me in my life, perhaps I wouldn't have dared to bring to someone else. The week I had my first baby, a friend brought me a curry-cauliflower-carrot soup that I still dream about. Ditto to the zuchini-tomato-rice with cheese casserole in another state after my son was born.

I don't have the recipe for either one.

I did used to gleefully make the missionaries my weirdest vegetarian creations, like good gypsy soup. I figured they weren't getting enough vegetables. With a side of sausages, just from frozen and cooked in the microwave. Since I didn't know how to cook meat. And some wheat rolls, in case they were homesick.

What do you like to bring?

What do you hope they'll bring you?

One of my rules--there may be more later

Because I have posting power, I'm going to use it right now. Last night, instead of getting to sleep, I was thinking about this blog. And worrying. If we're going to talk about food, about who eats what, about what is really best for us, somebody is going to get her little feelers hurt. You know I'm right. "I nursed my children until they were 3." "We only use natural toys in our home (wooden-no plastic)." "Homeschooling is the only way to ensure a proper education for our children." "I have 3 years of food storage under my bed." "A woman who truly loves her children would never work outside the home." "We don't let our children play with non-members."

"Blogging on Sunday breaks one of the Big Ten." We all have things we're passionate about and that isn't a bad thing. We don't all have to be passionate about the same things, or expect everyone to share our passions. Further, assuming you're a Mormon you've heard the concept of loving your neighbor. One good way to love your neighbor in the context of this blog is to encourage one another, but in the kindest, gentlest, most loving of ways. We all love our families and want to do what is best for them, but we all have different ideas about what 'best' is. Just as if you were being a 'member missionary' you wouldn't walk up to a complete stranger, and tell them they're deluded and they need to join the True Church right now, you wouldn't tell a complete stranger on this blog that how she feeds her family is wrong.