Procrastination Recipe: Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

As a child I used to LOVE when my mother made Shepherd's pie. Love, love, love. What's better than mashed potatoes, corn and ground meat? And then five years ago I decided to cut meat out of my diet (for ethical reasons) and lost a few of my favorite dishes (i.e. brisket). Oh god, now I want my Nana's Yorkshire Pudding!

Anywho. This week I've been fixated on missing Shepherd's Pie and then I thought, what if I substitute mushrooms for the meat? And voila! Not to toot my own horn, but this was flippin good and took less than an hour to make.

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter

half a yellow onion

6 small potatoes

1 bag frozen corn

3/4 cup milk

1 container baby bella mushrooms

1 container portobello

2 tablespoons BBQ sauce

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 cup cubed cheese (I used Cabot's Horseradish cheddar)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Peel and cut potatoes into uniform size. Cook in salted boiling water until soft.

Meanwhile, dice the onion and mushrooms and saute them with two tablespoons of butter until soft. Add the BBQ sauce, stir well, then add the flour. Cook for another minute so the flour taste is cooked out. Then lay into the bottom of a casserole dish. (Note: My mother used to make this in a pie plate but mine is too small. But it does make a prettier presentation to serve it in a pie shape.)

So then you take your bag of frozen corn. You want to defrost it. I'd bought a bag that was steamable in the bag so I nuked that and then layered it over the mushrooms. If you'd prefer a different veg then go ahead and substitute it. But me, I love corn something fierce.

Once your potatoes have softened, mash them with the remaining butter, milk, a pinch of salt and pepper. I like my potatoes chunky but you could certainly mash them until they are smooth. I prefer a more rustic look, that's all. I then chopped up the cheese (it was maybe an inch size chunk but feel free to use as much or as little as you want) into small pieces and stirred them in. I didn't want them to melt completely because I was hoping for burst of flavor with each bite.

Then I layered the potatoes into the dish, drizzled a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil over the dish and popped it in the oven (at 375 degrees F) for ten minutes.