Vegan Enchiladas — The Sunday Pan with Roasted Sweet Potato and Black Beans

Day thirty-eight of ninety, and the week had a small piece of news in it that I want to put on the page before I get to the recipe. Cody passed his thirty-day check-in with Ms. Ellis on Tuesday afternoon at the Tulsa County Probation Department on Sheridan Avenue. He drove himself in the Cavalier because Mama was at her shift. He brought his pay stub from the auto-body shop and a letter from Mr. Garcia confirming his employment and a printout of the bank statement showing the small savings account he opened on the first of the month with his second-week paycheck. He sat in the lobby for twenty minutes. He met with Ms. Ellis for thirty.

He came home at four-thirty and sat at the kitchen table. He did not take off his work boots first, which was unusual for him — he has been very careful about not tracking grease through the house since he started at the auto-body shop — and he just sat at the table with the boots on and he said, very flat, very quiet, she said I’m doing what I should be doing, Kay. I said, that’s the whole point, isn’t it. He said, I guess. And then he was silent for about a minute, and I made him a cup of coffee, and he drank it.

I want to write down that his voice on the sentence had a relief in it he was trying not to let me see. We have both gotten very good at not getting our hopes up. We have both spent two months looking at the calendar in the closet and crossing off X marks and being quietly steady, day by day, the way you are steady when you do not yet know whether the steady will be enough. The thirty-day check-in was the first official confirmation, by a person whose job it is to tell the judge what to do, that we are doing the right things. The check-in is not the sentencing. The check-in is just one piece of the file. But it is one piece, and the piece is in our favor, and Cody’s voice had relief in it whether he wanted me to see it or not. I let him not show it. We are both still managing.

Thanksgiving is a week from tomorrow, and Mama and I sat at the kitchen table on Saturday to do the planning. I want to put the plan on the page because I want to remember the shape of this Thanksgiving in particular, the first Thanksgiving since Daddy left, the first Thanksgiving since the arrest, the first Thanksgiving as the household we now are.

The plan is small. A turkey from the Walmart sale — whole birds went on at $0.79 a pound the week before Thanksgiving, which means a 12-pound bird will be about $9.50. A pan of cornbread dressing the way Grandma Carol used to make it — Mama is going to handle that because the dressing is hers. Green bean casserole. Mashed potatoes. Gravy from the turkey drippings. A can of cranberry sauce. Dinner rolls from a pack at Walmart. And a pumpkin pie I am going to make from scratch for the first time, which I have been working up the courage to attempt for two months. Total budget: $35. We are tight on cash because of the monthly twenty-dollar payments to Aunt Tammy that are eating most of the discretionary spending, but we carved the Thanksgiving budget out of the November numbers and we are not borrowing it from anywhere else.

And then there is the recipe for this week. I want to tell you about the vegan enchiladas, because I made them as the Sunday batch-cook on a recipe I had been holding in my notebook for three weeks, and I want to tell you about how I adapted them.

The recipe was the Vegan Enchiladas from A Couple Cooks, and the recipe called for cashew cream as the sauce binder, which is a thing made by soaking raw cashews and blending them with water until smooth. Raw cashews at Aldi are $5.99 a pound. We are not going to buy raw cashews. We are not going to buy raw cashews ever. So I had to figure out the substitution before I cooked the recipe, and the substitution was easy: I used a regular shredded mexican blend cheese, which is the cheese we have on hand. The recipe became, technically, not vegan. The recipe became enchiladas with a vegetable filling, which I would argue is the part the recipe was actually about.

The math: one can of black beans drained and rinsed, $0.79. Two medium sweet potatoes peeled and cubed, $1.20. A cup of frozen corn from the bag in the freezer, $0.40. A 15-ounce can of tomato sauce for the homemade enchilada sauce, $0.79. A packet of taco seasoning, $0.49. A pack of twelve flour tortillas, $1.49. A bag of mexican blend cheese, $1.99. Garlic, an onion, a tablespoon of olive oil, salt, pepper, ground cumin, smoked paprika from the rack. Total: about $6.40 for a 9x13 pan that gave us twelve enchiladas and fed three people for two dinners.

The technique that made the filling work, which is the trick I want you to keep, is the roasting of the sweet potato cubes. You toss the cubes with olive oil, salt, pepper, and cumin, and you roast them at 425 for twenty minutes until the edges are caramelized and the centers are tender. The sweet potato is no longer a side-dish vegetable; it is a substantial, savory, slightly sweet, slightly smoky filling component that holds its own against the beans and corn. You combine the roasted sweet potato with the black beans and the corn in a bowl, with a half cup of the cheese stirred in for binding. That is the filling.

The homemade enchilada sauce I learned to make this week is going to be a sauce I make often. It is the can of tomato sauce, the packet of taco seasoning, a half cup of water, simmered together for ten minutes until thickened. That is it. The whole sauce. It tastes the way the canned enchilada sauce at the store tastes, except it costs $1.30 instead of $2.99 for the same yield. Another wall made of paper. The list of walls I have punched through is getting long.

You assemble the enchiladas the standard way: dip a tortilla quickly in the warm sauce, fill with the bean-sweet-potato mixture, roll, place seam-side down in a 9x13 pan brushed with sauce. Repeat until the pan is full. Pour remaining sauce over the top. Sprinkle with the rest of the cheese. Bake at 375 for twenty minutes, covered with foil for the first ten and uncovered for the last ten so the cheese gets brown.

The pan came out of the oven Sunday at six. Mama got home at six-twenty. Cody had been at the kitchen table reading Of Mice and Men — he finished To Kill a Mockingbird three weeks ago and Mr. Briggs lent him the next one when I told him about the reading, and Cody is now technically reading along with the literature track in my English class without being in school. The three of us ate at the kitchen table at six-thirty. Cody had three enchiladas. Mama had two. I had two. Cody’s second sentence of the dinner, after the first quiet bite, was: I did not know enchiladas could not have meat in them and still be enchiladas. And Mama, without missing a beat, said, baby, your sister is showing you the world.

I want to keep that line on the page. Your sister is showing you the world. Mama said it gently and a little teasing. Cody laughed, the small laugh he laughs now, the careful laugh of somebody who is learning to be careful with himself. He said, I guess she is. And we ate.

The leftovers carried us through Tuesday and Wednesday. The X marks on the calendar are at thirty-eight. Cody’s next probation meeting is in three weeks. Thanksgiving is in six days. The pumpkin pie I am going to attempt this weekend is the next step. The household is holding.

The recipe is below, the way A Couple Cooks wrote it. If you want to make the vegan version, follow it as written; if you want to make my version, swap the cashew cream for shredded mexican blend cheese. The trick I want you to keep is the roasted sweet potato — do not skip the twenty-minute roast at 425, which is what turns the sweet potato from a sad chunk into a savory caramelized filling. The homemade enchilada sauce is going to live in your weeknight rotation if you let it. Tomato sauce, taco seasoning, water, simmered ten minutes, done.

Vegan Enchiladas

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 8 corn tortillas
• 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can (15 oz) pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup frozen or canned corn, drained
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (10 oz) red enchilada sauce
• 1/2 cup salsa
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup shredded vegan cheese (such as Daiya or Follow Your Heart)
• Fresh cilantro, sliced green onions, and avocado for serving (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with a thin layer of enchilada sauce on the bottom to prevent sticking.
2. Saute the vegetables. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the diced onion and bell pepper and cook for 5–6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
3. Build the filling. Add the black beans, pinto beans, and corn to the skillet. Stir in cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, and salt. Pour in the salsa and stir everything together. Cook for 3–4 minutes until heated through and well combined. Remove from heat.
4. Warm the tortillas. Wrap corn tortillas in a damp paper towel and microwave for 45 seconds to make them pliable. Alternatively, warm them one at a time in a dry skillet over medium heat for 30 seconds per side.
5. Fill and roll. Spoon about 1/3 cup of filling down the center of each tortilla. Roll tightly and place seam-side down in the prepared baking dish. Repeat with all 8 tortillas, nestling them snugly side by side.
6. Sauce and top. Pour the remaining enchilada sauce evenly over the rolled enchiladas, covering them completely. Sprinkle shredded vegan cheese over the top.
7. Bake. Cover the dish loosely with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 10 minutes until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is melted and lightly golden at the edges.
8. Rest and serve. Let the enchiladas rest for 5 minutes before serving. Top with fresh cilantro, sliced green onions, and avocado if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 380 | Protein: 14g | Fat: 10g | Carbs: 58g | Fiber: 13g | Sodium: 820mg