Thursday, January 05, 2006

My recipe for Shepherds Pie.

First thing is that as far as possible all the ingredients I use are organic. Eat organic - it's good for you and the environment. By buying and eating organic you won't be encouraging those ignorant gits to put poison on our earth because they are too damn lazy to grow things properly. Second thing is keep it simple - good food tastes good without a load of messing about.

300g OG green/brown lentils
an OG onion
5 cloves OG garlic
a big OG carrot
1/4 tin OG chopped tomatoes
1 kg OG potatoes, I think Desiree are the best variety for this pie.
1/2 cup of OG milk
OG miso, yeast extract or marmite.
OG tamari
100g OG cheddar cheese

OK, cut the carrot into smallish cubes and steam them. Cook the lentils in about four times their volume of water mixed with the water from the steamed carrots. Cooking in a pressure cooker saves time (and fuel) but be careful not to cook the shit out of them. They need to be just cooked, whole and just turning slightly to lentil gravy. What you're after here is a fairly thick lentil stew - definitely not watery at all.
Fry the onion and the garlic in olive oil till it is nicely browned. I'm quite generous with the olive oil - I like it.
Add the lentils, tomatoes and carrots to the onions and garlic and stir it all together. Add a small teaspoon of marmite. If you prefer to use miso instead of marmite you can use tamari, which is salty, to make the lentils more tasty. Keep the whole mix simmering until you're ready to make the pie.
Get the potatoes going in the pressure cooker. When they are cooked, strain the water off, then add the milk and mash them up until they are fluffy.

Put the lentil mix in a flat dish and using a fork spread the mashed potatoes evenly over the top. Go right to the edges of the dish so that the lentils are completely covered. Grate the cheese over the potatoes and put the pie in the oven on gas 5 for about 20 minutes.

Serve the pie with thick onion gravy and a huge serving of full-on organic spring greens.

NB. when I say 'gits', in this case what I really mean to say is 'our dear brothers and sisters who as yet sadly lack the conciousness to look after our planet properly'.

4 comments:

  1. I hope the shepherd was organic as well. You omit to mention that. Them chemical ones are right buggers to get in the cooker.

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  2. Vicus, get Shila to cook this for you, you'll love it.

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  3. We BOTH make something similar but with aduki beans.
    vegetable rights and peace.

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  4. I've had a shepherd's pie, but it had meat in it. Are you a vegan dear Tom?

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