I wish that I could take credit for this very yummy and hearty dish but I cannot. My friend Cindy gave me this recipe a few years ago and it was love at first bite for me! I have never had the exact measurements for this dish but it has always turned out well so it is definitely a dish that you don’t have to be too precise with.
While I could happily eat this all year, it is the perfect warming meal for a cold winters night. Snuggling up on the lounge in my onesy with a big bowl of lentil shepherd’s pie with peas and a DVD (and my lovely husband) sounds like a perfect evening.
I have even served this up to meat loving nephews and one niece and they loved it too. I was a little sneaky and didn’t mention the lack of meat until after they started eating! Our nephew Isaac, told me that it was even better than his Mum’s meat shepherd’s pie. Unfortunately that was said in front of his Mum but she seemed OK with it.
To thank my friend Cindy Hamrey for this recipe, I’m going to make a shameless plug for her new business, ‘A Cultured Life’ (great name!). She will have a website up and running soon which is about cultured food and drink such as Kombucha. I really don’t know much about cultured food apart from having heard of Kombucha recently so I will be interested to see her site. I will add the website address to this post when she has it ready.
- 1 cup green lentils
- 4½ cups veggie stock (2 cups & 2½ cups separate)
- 2 x 420g cans gluten free tomato soup
- 2 large zucchinis (approx. 400g)
- 2 large carrots (approx. 400g)
- 150g shallots
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp vegan sweet chilli sauce
- 1 kg potatoes
- ¼ cup almond milk
- 2 tbsp vegan margarine
- Rinse lentils well and add to a medium saucepan with 2½ cups veggie stock. Bring to boil and then reduce heat to simmer for about 20 minutes or until lentils are tender. Make sure you don't overcook because they will have some more cooking time in the over later. I usually like them to still be a little bit firm at this stage but not hard.
- While lentils are cooking, peel and chop up potatoes, place in a saucepan, cover with water, add a tsp of sea salt & bring to boil. Reduce to a simmer. When tender, mash with almond milk & vegan margarine & put aside.
- If you have a food processor, I would suggest that now is the time to use it because the zucchinis and carrots have to be grated. When I first started making this, I would grate by hand but that was no fun at all and I was very happy when I discovered the grating blade on my food processor.
- Finely chop the shallots and finely chop or crush the garlic. Heat the olive oil in a deep frypan or pot - I use my cast iron pot. When hot, add the shallots and garlic. Cook until soft and translucent. Make sure the heat is not too high so the shallots and garlic don't brown.
- Add zucchini and carrot and stir through then cook for a few minutes until vegetables are softened.
- Add lentils and stir to combine. Add remaining 2 cups of veggie stock and stir. Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cook until stock liquid has almost completely gone.
- Add tomato soup and sweet chilli sauce and stir to combine. Bring to boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the mixture is thick and there isn't too much liquid left.
- Transfer mixture to the oven proof dish that you want to serve it in. Cover top of mixture with mashed potatoes. You can get fancy & pipe it on with a piping bag but I usually just use a couple of spoons and gently place the potato on top.
- Cook for approx. 20 minutes or until potatoes has browned slightly.
- Remove from oven & serve with peas. Yum!
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