When I went to college in Los Angeles, I ate at Real Food Daily as much as I could. I made a habit of picking up a take out Yin Yang Salad (cabbage with tofu and peanut sauce) each time I headed to the airport. And I ate more slices of whole grain bread and carrot cashew butter than I care to admit. A few years after I left the city, Ann Gentry published The Real Food Daily Cookbook, which quickly became one of my most trusted kitchen resources. To this day, the peanut sauce and skillet cornbread never fail to make me exceedingly happy.

With that history, you can imagine my delight to learn that Gentry is coming out with a new book more geared for home cooks. Here, a bit more context for understanding the motivation behind the book, which I am quite sure I will start to wear out as soon as I take it home.

RM: As a big fan of the first book (I cannot tell you how many times I've made the skillet cornbread, the peanut sauce, or the balsamic vinaigrette...too many to count!), I'm curious to hear how this one is different, or what you are most excited by with this book.
Ann Gentry: Fundamentally, the difference between Vegan Family Meals and my first book, The Real Food Daily Cookbook is the latter is comprised of recipes from a working restaurant kitchen. Recipes made for the masses were converted into small quantities for the home cook. Restaurant recipes have more steps because we have many helpers to cut, and dice and prep. Most home cooks wish for a prep and clean up person! The recipes in Vegan Family Meals are more personal, recipes that I make more readily at home. The majority of the recipes have less than 12 ingredients and have fewer steps. Vegan Family Meals appeals to everyone looking to add quick, easy, accessible vegan dishes to their cooking repertoire.

What do you hope that non-vegans learn from cooking from the book?
Vegan Family Meals is filled with flavorful and satisfying recipes that support every one's health, personal ethics, and the environment that we all share. People already know that looking after their family's long-term health means fitting more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains into every meal—and more plant-based meals and snacks into every week—but they don't always know how to accomplish this. The answer is contained within this book: With home-cooked, vegan meals.

Do you find any particular challenges in cooking vegan for your kids? Have they taught you any valuable lessons about eating/enjoying food that you can share?
The palates of Infants and toddlers are relatively bland. The tiniest bit of flavor is intense for them and they prefer the simplicity of one taste or texture at a time. When they get a little older, it is time to start educating kids about where food comes from, how it is grown, and have them around in the kitchen when you are preparing their food to get them involved. Just like with adults, it is important to have variety in the foods you offer them. My kids might ask for pizza and pasta at mealtime but they will eat and enjoy whole grains and steamed vegetables or a freshly made pot of soup. One of my favorite stories: A young friend of one of my kids was eating dinner with us said she'd never had a bowl of rice. This kid ate three or four bowls of brown rice in one sitting and continues to come to our house and ask for a bowl of rice at every visit.

I think most kids have a laser like radar for quality fresh foods. It is the adults that corrupt kids’ palates by feeding them fats and sweets, thinking this is what they want. Unfortunately, kids get addicted to the highly processed foods and it becomes hard to move away from them.

There's an idea that vegan, plant based foods take longer to prepare and are more complex. Can you speak to whether that's actually true, and if it is, why we might want to embrace it?
A plant-based diet encourages creativity in the kitchen, with a seasonally rotating palette of fresh, colorful produce ripe for use. Prepare the best local and seasonal ingredients with a variety of cooking methods, and you'll have more interesting and diverse tastes, textures, and colors on your plate. Any quality home cooking takes a little time. As a busy working mother, I too am juggling the day-to-day challenges. In my book, I talk about while it's nice to have the American-style four or five dishes at every meal, it's not necessary. Balance your nutrition intake across the week, and don't get hung up on making every meal a feast. Instead, focus on preparing a few recipes that will keep your cooking simple and your time in the kitchen enjoyable.

Do you have any tips for folks who are new to some of the ingredients they might come across that might help them to feel less intimidated by the unfamiliar?
In my book, I've included a Real Food Pantry that introduces and describes the different ingredients used in vegan cooking as well as the many varieties of one food. For example, besides a homemade recipe for non-dairy milk and cheese, I've explained the different type of store bought non-dairy milks and cheeses. I think there is getting to be enough exposure and availability to the various ingredients and products that are staples in vegan cooking that people are no longer perplexed as to how to use these new and sometimes unusual ingredients. As someone who lives in the Midwest, I’ve found that to not be entirely true. But even though many of my friends simply haven’t been exposed to some of these ingredients—miso paste, quinoa, barley flour, cashew cream—I’m happy to do my part to make the introductions.