In the 1980s, Nava Atlas was a graphic designer and illustrator “trying to make my way in New York City,” as she puts it. She was also a vegetarian, which in those days “was enough to make you a weirdo.”
When she wasn’t working, she says in a Zoom interview from her home in New York’s Hudson Valley, she cooked creative but simple dishes for herself and her husband. She wasn’t cooking out of books; she was improvising, which led to the inevitable problem that strikes those of us who like to color outside the lines: If she made something great, she couldn’t necessarily repeat it. “So my husband, when I made something that he liked, started saying, ‘Why don’t you write this one down?’”
Before long, she had a collection of written recipes of her own. But her interests were always broader. “I was a cook and I was an artist, and I absolutely love books and literature and reading,” she says. “So that’s how I got the idea to combine all of my interests into this one book.”
By “this one book,” she means “Vegetariana,” the quirky 1984 volume of 170 vegetarian recipes paired with her own delightfully quirky pencil drawings, food trivia and quotes from famous figures. (A quote from Babe Ruth on scallions — “The greatest cure for a batting slump ever invented” — is accompanied by a drawing of Ruth about to swing a giant scallion instead of a bat.) Late last year, Atlas published a revised and updated edition of the book that reflects one of the biggest of her own dietary shifts: It’s now all vegan.
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Since publishing “Vegetariana,” Atlas has gone on to write many other cookbooks over the decades, including “Plant-Powered Protein” and “Wild About Greens.” Now in her 60s, she’s as busy as ever, creating such books as “The Literary Ladies’ Guide to the Writing Life” and operating the websites The Vegan Atlas and Literary Ladies Guide. So even as she has gotten more and more experience cooking — and writing recipes — her own cooking remains appealingly streamlined.
For example, this recipe for Quinoa and Red Bean Sloppy Joes, one of the recipes she added in the new edition (from which she removed a chapter on eggs and cheese, along with recipes she says “felt just too much like the 80s — or even the 60s or 70s.”)
In their classic form, sloppy Joes are little more than sauced and seasoned ground beef on a bun, and have a decidedly retro comfort-food appeal. (Remember the 1970s ad for the Hunt’s canned sloppy Joe sauce: “A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal”?)
Quinoa didn’t make an appearance in Atlas’s 1984 original. It had just started being exported into the United States, she says, but it wouldn’t catch on for many years. In a 1999 second edition of the book (mostly done to try to improve the printing), Atlas added a handful of quinoa recipes, along with a couple of paragraphs of lore, including that according to Incan legend, it was such a revered crop that “it sprang from a heavenly banquet.”
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Nowadays, quinoa — with its high protein content and quick cooking — is ubiquitous, perhaps no more so than in plant-based cooking like the sort Atlas has been promoting for so many years.
I doubt the “Manwich” ad writers could have imagined that a half-century later, some sloppy Joes would be made with quinoa and red beans. But in Atlas’s hands, their filling is almost as quick to make as the classic. While your quinoa is simmering away, you saute onion and bell pepper, then add the quinoa plus a can of beans, a can of tomato sauce and seasonings. A few more minutes to meld the flavors, and you’re ready to spoon the filling onto lightly toasted buns (or into tortillas for tacos, if you’d like) — and make a delightful mess of the eating.
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This smoky-sweet combination of quinoa, red beans and spices can be piled on buns to make sloppy Joes or used as a taco filling with your favorite fixings. Serve with chips, pickles and/or coleslaw.
Storage Notes: Refrigerate leftovers for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 6 months.
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