Shepherd's Pie

This dish is great for the fall and winter because you can pretty much bake it for as long as you like. It'll make the kitchen all warm and fill you right up!

Ingredients:

4 large Russet or Idaho potatoes (about 3lbs)
1/2cup water or veggie broth
1/2cup tomato sauce w/basil or whatever pasta sauce you have
16oz. frozen mixed veggies (I used a mix of carrots, green beans, peas, and Lima beans)
8oz. mushrooms
2 medium sized onions
1/2cup non-diary non-sweetened milk
1sprig fresh rosemary de-stemmed
1.5tbs vegan margarine (we love Earthbalance)
2tbs salt
2tbs soy sauce
.5tsp liquid smoke
9"x13" baking dish


optional:

2 stalks of chopped celery for the veggie mix

Start by boiling the potatoes until they're tender nice and tender. If you can easily push into the potato the length of the fork tooth, you're probably good. I would say give them a good 35-40min.

While the potatoes are boiling, place water or veggie broth in a pot, bring up the water temperature over medium heat and add chopped onions and mixed frozen veggies (the mixed veggies can be defrosted before hand or thawed right in the pot, don't worry, either way works). After about 7-8min the onions will get soft and the frozen veggies hot, add chopped mushroom and cook an additional 7-8min stirring occasionally.

Once all the veggies have softened, stir in tomato sauce, soy sauce, and liquid smoke then allow to simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.

Take boiled potatoes and mash in non-dairy milk, fennel, salt, and vegan margarine until smooth. Taste and adjust flavors as necessary. Then test to see if the potatoes spread easily, if not, get to mashin' so more. Spread veggies evenly across 9"x13" baking dish and top mixture with mashed potatoes. Bake for 35min-45min until bubbling. Allow cooling for 15min and serve.

Note: My dish was done at 30min but I let it bake for about an hour while waiting for Tamar to get home from a long day. The result: the top came out deliciously crispy and the whole dish was amazing. So take that winter...let it bake!

All-American Dinner

We looooooooooooove the Morningstar Bacon Strips. Grandma Lydia was making me BLT sandwiches with them when I was 10 years old; it was my first introduction to meat substitutes. Luckily Target is fully stocked with them, and at less than $4, we've found our chief supplier.

Last night's dinner: BLT sammies, boiled corn, and roasted potatoes with rosemary.

It was just so good. We brushed the veggie bacon with a reduced balsamic vinegar and honey glaze that we used to flavor our kale a few days ago, and then stuck the strips in the broiler for a few minutes until they were slightly charred. The sandwich was simple: toasted bread with mustard, fresh lettuce, slices of tomato and the bacon. An easy sammie idea! Unfortunately the bacon strips are not vegan. Argh.

Roasted Red Potatoes with Rosemary (vegan)

4 red potatoes, cut into one inch cubes (we kept the skin on again)
1 full sprig of Rosemary, chopped
1 TBSP olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss diced potatoes with rosemary, olive oil and S&P in a bowl and spread out on to a foil-lined baking sheet. Roast in the oven for about 25 minutes. Yum.

Scalloped Potatoes

Part of our CSA pickup this week included two pounds of red and yellow potatoes. Thursday morning, Greg suggested we make scalloped potatoes, and we just couldn't get the idea out of our head for the rest of the day. We opened up our favorite cookbook, Don't Feed the Bears, and there it was! One of the yummiest vegan scalloped potato recipes ever. Since the authors of the book don't care if their recipes are reproduced, and in fact encourage it, here it is (though, really, you should buy this book! It's our vegan bible):

Scalloped Potatoes (vegan)

1 tsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup tahini
2 TBSP whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup water
5 medium potatoes

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Thinly slice the potatoes; we didn't peel them since they were organic and we knew there wouldn't be some weird chemicals caked on. May as well take advantage of all the nutrients in that skin!
Heat oil in pan and saute onion and garlic on medium heat until onion is translucent. In a blender, mix together the tahini, flour, salt and water.
Layer the slices of potato in a lightly greased square pan, overlapping the edges. Use the onion and garlic mixture as the top layer, and pour on the tahini sauce. Cover with foil and bake for an hour. Uncover and bake for another 5-10 minutes, until golden brown. We topped ours with a bit of paprika and seasoned with salt and pepper.