Lenten Series: Vegetarian Shepard's Pie

As you know, Ash Wednesday was this past week, and so we are now firmly entrenched in Lent. This year my husband Carl and I decided to give up meat for Lent. Until Easter, I'm going to share some old and new vegetarian recipes, starting with the Shepard's pie we made for dinner tonight. We modified it from this recipe.


Ingredients:

• 5 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled half way and sliced thin
• 1 8-oz package cream cheese
• 1 stick butter
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  
• 1 16-oz package of frozen vegetables (we combined frozen peas, carrots, corn, and green beans)
• a couple tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1 15-oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed (the original recipe calls for a 19-oz can, but I wasn't able to find one, so we made up the difference with chick peas)
• about 4-oz chick peas
• 1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 14.5-oz can tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon pasta sprinkle (this is a blend of dried basil, oregano, thyme, and garlic)
• 1 teaspoon herbes de provence (this is a blend of dried rosemary, fennel, thyme, savory, basil, tarragon, dill weed, oregano, lavender, chervil, and marjoram)
• 1 tablespoon paprika with a little extra to sprinkle on top
  
• 1 cup cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Boil the potatoes until they are tender. In a saucepan saute the onion, bell pepper, and garlic in the oil. Stir in the kidney beans, chick peas, veggies, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and spices. Mix the potatoes, cream cheese, butter, and garlic powder in stand mixer and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour the veggie mixture into a greased 2 1/2 quart casserole dish. Spoon the mashed potatoes on top. Sprinkle the cheddar cheese on top of the potatoes and sprinkle paprika on top of the cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes.



This is my recipe for mashed potatoes, and we only used about half of it for this recipe. We wanted to have some extra to munch on throughout the week, but if you didn't want the extra, you could just make half. In the future I also think I would also include a couple tablespoons red wine and some mushrooms to add a little extra umami flavor.