Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

This is simple, hearty and packed full of goodness - perfect for an alternative to your meat free Sunday lunch or a weeknight supper.

You can swap out any veg you like but I went for slightly robust veg that doesn't turn into mush during the cooking process. Two types of lentils were used for texture and taste and for the added protein value. Even the strictest of carnivores won't miss the meat. Give it a try...

Lets start with a large frying pan, heat up some oil or butter

Fry onions, garlic, carrots, butternut squash and sweet potato until onions soften

Add the red and puy lentils, spinach and seasonings and mix through

Add stock of choice and let the lentils cook for 20 minutes

Whilst lentils are cooking. Boil potatoes and prepare mash then top the lentil veg mixture in a baking dish. Creating ridges help the potato crisp up - my favourite part to eat.

Some people bake it but I put mine under grill to brown as everything was cooked already and I just wanted the top crisped and brown.

Yum, give it a try and let me know :)

Ingredients for filling:

• 2 tablespoon butter or oil for frying

• 2 onions chopped

• 4 carrots diced

• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• 1/2 butternut squash diced

• 2 sweet potatoes diced

• 6 cubes of frozen spinach defrosted

• 1 tablespoon dried thyme

• 1 tablespoon all-purpose seasoning

• optional handful crumble of feta cheese

• 100g red lentil

• 200g puy lentils (I used Merchant Gourmet Puy lentils)

• 2 tablespoon tomato purée

• 400ml stock

• Handful of parsely

For the topping:

• 1kg floury potato, such as King Edwards

• 60g butter

• 100ml milk

Method:

To make the sauce, heat the butter or oil in a pan, then gently fry the onions, carrots, garlic, butternut squash, sweet potato until onions are translucent, roughly 10 minutes.

Add the lentils and spinach. I used the frozen variety of spinach as I always have it in my freezer. If you don’t just use a bag of fresh spinach.

Add the seasonings, tomato puree and thyme. Then add the stock.

Bring to a boil and let it simmer until the red lentils are cooked (the puy lentils are already pre-cooked. This will take between 20-30 minutes. Check for seasoning and add a handful of parsely....and if you want and this is very optional I added a handful of crumbled feta cheese. In my opinion it gave the mixture a lil more saltiness and creaminess and I do love feta.

Meanwhile prepare the mash. Tip the potatoes into a pan of water, then boil for about 15 mins until tender. Drain well, mash with the butter and milk, then season with salt and pepper.

Time to assemble the pie, pour the lentil mixture in an ovenproof dish then top with mash. Create ridges in the pie for extra crispiness and scatter over cheese and dot with butter. Most people will bake this but I don’t see the point as everything is cooked so I stick it under the grill until the topping is golden.

Enjoy xoxo