Vegan Shepard's Pie

It's been a busy week for the hubby and me (did you know teachers don't just work 6 hours a day???)  There's been some late nights at work so I actually went on my weekly grocery shopping trip on Wednesday.  Felt a little weird.  

Friday night is pizza night of course and this weekend my college roommate is getting married, so I really only had to worry about Wednesday and Thursday night.  I went with Shepard's pie.  

Ingredients

• 4 potatoes (I used two regular and 2 sweet potatoes)
• 2 tablespoons vegan mayo (I used Just Mayo)
• splash of unsweetened almond milk
• 1 package of precooked lentils
• 1 shallot
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 six oz. can of tomato paste
• as many veggies as you can fit/like (I used fresh celery and carrots and added frozen green beans, corn and peas)  
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

This was so good.  I wouldn't post anything on here that wasn't a hit of course.  Sometimes when you're a vegetarian you miss out of going to restaurants and having some good comfort food.  Shepard's pie is definitely one of those foods you typically don't see a vegetarian version of.  I have made veggie Shepard's pie before but I used veggie beef crumble.  Last night I experimented with lentils and I didn't miss the veggie beef at all.  Trader Joe's sells a precooked package of lentils, so I went with that to make my life a little easier.   

Prep for this meal was super easy.  The hardest part was the mashed potatoes.  I've actually never made mashed potatoes before so I'm sure many of you have a better way of doing it.  I did get to break out my new potato masher though that I purchased at Crate and Barrel.  It was fun!  I have a picture of it on my Instagram attached to this page.  

So yeah, make mashed potatoes how ever people who know how to make mashed potatoes do.  I did mine with half sweet potatoes, pretending to be healthier.  I also mixed them with a splash of almond milk and some vegan mayo (vegan butter would work as well but I wanted to experiment).  I sautéed the garlic, shallot, and onion in my cast iron grill.  Then I added the fresh and frozen veggies and sautéed those as well.  I added the tomato paste and stirred that into the veggies.  

I spooned the mashed potatoes on top and added a little Daiya cheese as well.  I want to say I cooked it for about 15 minutes.  Figure, the mashed potatoes are already warm as well as the veggies.  The beauty about the cast iron grill is you can stick it in the oven (thanks Kiel and Rudy!).  It came out looking like this.  

It was a hit and (obviously) we had some leftovers for lunch the next day.  It's a pretty healthy version of a Shepard's pie too.  I served it with some farm fresh squash from my parents'.  It's a great dish to bring to a party or to make for the token vegetarian at the Thanksgiving dinner table.  

Enjoy!