COOKED VEGAN RECIPE Shepard's Pie with All Natural Ingredients, No Cans, No Frozen Vegetables! and Vegan Mashed Potato Recipe

Ok, Ok, I am eating cooked food today.

It's winter. It's my first winter raw and I still eat mostly raw food, and absolutely vegan and whole. No canned or frozen fruits or veges, EVER!! However, there will be some cooked veges. Ok? So, enjoy my recipe for Shepard's Pie.

I googled vegan shepard's pie and all the recipes I found wanted worchestershire sauce and canned tomatoes, frozen or canned mix veges, INSTANT mashed potatoes and even dairy cheese, for the love of Pan! Since when is cheese a viable vegan option?

So, I decided to make it up myself. It's just stew with mashed potatoes on top how hard could it be?
I never made shepard's pie before but I have eaten it. I bought a frozen one once and it accidently thawed but I microwaved it and ate it anyway. Not good. I think it was annies, i don't remember. That was a couple years ago. Back when I didn't really care what I ate. I thought I cared but I really just ate junk all the time. Mostly frozen dinners and sandwiches.

Mashed potato topping, you can make this in advance before you cook the stew. it will be thicker than mashed potatoes, you will add hot liquid from the stew before topping the dish with it.

5 sm potatoes, washed and quartered.
Large pot of filtered water, enough to cover the potato pieces.
Put the potatoes in cold water with a tsp of salt or less, bring to a boil and turn the heat down to low. Let the potatoes cook slowly, until you can put a fork in one and it doesn't break apart.
Drain in a collander.

Peel the potatoes. I have the collander or cooled off pototoes, a large bowl and a smaller bowl to discard the peels
Stab the potato piece with a fork and peel it with a butterknife. It doesn't take long. Leave a bit of peels on if you like them that way, I do!

When you have all your potatoes peeled to your liking add:

1/4 cup coconut oil
2tbs seed cheese

Mash them very well with a fork or potato masher. I thougt I had one but it wasn't forthcoming when i searched the drawers. Boo.
They should be VERY thick. You will thin them with stew juice later.

The Stew
1 lrg carrot chopped into 3/4" wide rounds
3 ribs celery chopped finely
one med onion chopped into 8 pieces, big chunks
1 large clove garlic, smashed and peeled. Cut the stub off the end and just toss it in the pot. It will dissolve to nothing but flavor when the stew cooks.
1 handful of fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
1 sm potato, half chopped in large pieces, half chopped in small pieces
2 cups shredded cabbage
Just enough filtered water to cover the veges
Salt
Pepper

Let these ingredients simmer over low heat for about an hour. You don't want them over cooked, they will bake in the oven later, too.

Add 1 tbs corn starch. sprinkle it lightly and stir briskly to thicken the sauce a little.

I used a loaf pan. 9x5x3, I think. You can use a casserole or a deep pie dish.

With a slotted spoon scoop the cooked veges from the stew into the pan, without too much juice. Leave the juice in the stew pot to use in a minute.

To the mashed potatoes add some of the stew juice, some vege chunks can get in there, it's ok.

mash the potatoes and add enough juice to make it a thinner consistency. Remember, it's going to be in the oven at a low temp for a few hours, it will lose some liquid.
Spoon the mashed potatoes mixture on top and spread it out, or if you want to get fancy, use a pastry tube and squirt the topping on, ooh, gourmet!

Poke some holes in the top of the potatoes so the steam can escape when cooking, this will prevent bubbling over.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F and put your pie on the center rack with a cookie sheet under it just in case.

This is where I have gotten so far.












After taking this photo, I poked three holes in the potato topping that was sprinkled with ground black pepper



UPDATE:
I put it in the oven at 200 degrees from 10 am til 4 pm. I took it out so it could set up a little but it was really juicy. Next time, 2tbs cornstarch and less liquid in the baking pan.

E ate a big slice and so did I. He was thrilled that there were cooked veges! I've never seen anyone so happy to see cooked cabbage.
He eats all the meals I prepare and declares them delicious, but I know he misses cooked food.

The pie was declared a success, even though it was a bit juicy. I think a night in the fridge and another couple of hours on low heat in the oven will thicken it up.

Here is some nice close up vegan food porn:


















Things I would do different next time:
Less veges and a thicker layer of potatoes. Cook the veges for an even shorter time before assembly and baking.

All in all it was a hit, pretty easy to prepare (if you can make soup and mashed potatoes, you can make this), and I will definitely make this dish again. It took me about an hour to prepare the whole thing, not counting cooking times. It was labor intensive with the peeling and mashing of potatoes, but it certainly wasn't a difficult dish to prepare.


Thanks for your comments, Art and Melody. It's always nice to know somebody it looking