So in an attempt to help out our friend with Celiacs disease, Scoob and I have been brainstorming veg recipes that he can eat, in an effort to show him that his condition doesn’t require him to eat just meat. With an added allergy/intolerance to grains, it became quite the challenge.

The easiest thing that I could think of that’s veg and reminiscent of meaty dishes was a shepherd’s pie. It’s one of Samu’s favorite dishes and he will order it wherever it’s available. Everyone was pretty excited over the prospect of the pie.

An added treat, Scoob decided to film me cooking.

What you’ll need:

  • 5 lbs potatoes, peeled and chopped (it sounds like a lot but you’ll chop a few up for the stew and then mash the rest)
  • 3 carrots, peeled and sliced
  • 4 cups of veggie broth
  • 1 tbsp of Thyme
  • 2 tbsp of Rosemary
  • 1/2 onion chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 2 tbsp of olive oil
  • 1/4 cup of Earth Balance butter
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

The Stew

  1. Start off by cooking the onions and garlic until they’re soft.
  2. Add in the herbs
  3. Pour the veggie broth in and bring it to a boil.
  4. Add the carrots and about 2 cups of chopped potatoes. Let them cook for 15 minutes or until the carrots are softer.
  5. mix up a cornstarch and cold water slurry to thicken the soup while it’s cooking. I used about 3 tbsp of cornstarch to about 1/2 tbsp of cold water. It should be thick and goopy.
  6. Add the mixture at the end of cooking. Once the cornstarch is added, bring the soup back to a simmer for a few moments to allow the cornstarch to take effect. If the soup isn’t thickening to where you think it should be (I definitely underthickend my stew. In the future, I may use a roux to thicken the stew next time.)

The Potatoes

  1. Bring a large pot of water to boil.
  2. Toss the rest of the chopped potatoes into the boiling water.
  3. Let the potatoes boil for about 15-20 minutes or until they’re soft and easily squished with a fork.
  4. Once the potatoes are done, drain them and put them back into the pot.
  5. Start mushing the potatoes with a large fork to get them smooth.
  6. Add in salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Add in the cup of plain soy milk and keep mixing. Mashed potatoes are pretty simple, so you’ll know what level of chunkiness you’ll want to have with your topping, but do keep in mind that it is a topping to the stew.

With your potatoes made and your stew made, it’s time to put the two together and bake them.

  1. Grease the casserole dish so that things don’t stick. Preheat the oven to 350.
  2. Pour in the soup into the casserole.
  3. Add the potatoes to the top of the soup in little blobs, trying to smooth them out as you go. (my potatoes sank in as I added them, but it didn’t really bother me too much, just showed that the soup needed to be thicker).
  4. Once the stew is covered in potatoes, toss a sprinkle of nutritional yeast on top of the potatoes and pop it into the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the top of the potatoes has begun to brown.

I learned a little bit about Shepherd’s pie while making this, mostly about the thickness of the stew in comparison to the density of the potatoes. Definitely will make the soup with a roux next time to make it thick and gravy-like.

With that said, here’s our video!


This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 11:41 am, by NeedToDestroy, and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.