Easy Breezy Beautiful Covergirl Shepherds Pie

I'm Irish and lord knows many traditional Irish recipes call for two things: booze and meat. So last St Patricks Day, I was newly veg, and planning a party. I had no idea what to make until I came across a recipe for Shepherd's Pie. Now I'd had the meat version before at a pub in Santa Monica and thought it was pretty delicious and filling and would make a nice dish for the party. However all of the recipes I found were really time consuming and too much work to feed to a house full of drunks who were probably just going to complain about the lack of meat. So I went on a mission to make it just a little easier...

What you'll need:

For the topping:

Mashed Potatoes. Yes you could totally go boxed on these, but gross. I made my own and I'm a lazy bitch, so let's assume you're going to need real ones. To make mashed potatoes you need:

1 1/2 lbs potatoes, peeled and quartered length-wise
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 Tbsp heavy cream (or milk substitute)
2 Tbsp butter (or vegan butter substitute)
1 Tbsp milk
Salt and Pepper
1 teaspoon of minced garlic

1 Put potatoes into a pot. Add salt. Add water until potatoes are covered. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, 15-20 minutes, or until squishy and mashable

2 Warm cream and melt butter, together, either in microwave or in a pan on the stove. Drain water from potatoes. Put hot potatoes into a bowl. Add cream and melted butter. Use potato masher to mash potatoes until well mashed. Use a strong spoon to beat further, adding milk to achieve the consistency you desire. (Do not over-beat or your potatoes will get gluey.) Salt and pepper and garlic to taste.

Okay now set that aside, you'll need it in a little while.

Most Shepherds Pie recipes require you to make the filling yourself. But when I'd like to be drinking Guinness with my friends, I'd rather not be constructing what amounts to a vegetable soup all flippin day. So I called on Amy... Amy's Kitchen that is.

You'll need about two cans of Amy's Organic Soup. I used chunky vegetable (pictured below) but she's got a few interesting veggie combos brewing in her kitchen, if you know what I mean. I chose this brand because they have an easy to read "key" on their products that tells you if it's veggie or not. If you're new to the vegetarian game as I was last year, you might not know a lot of the "vegetable" soups that are on the shelves still have meat products in them. So be careful if you're using another brand.

Anyway take the two cans of Amy's Soup and combine them in a large pot. Add one pint of Guinness Beer and cover to simmer. I threw in some more garlic and pepper just make sure there was a kick to it.

Traditional Shephard's Pie does have meat in it and some people use artificial crumbles or whatever to replicate that texture and flavor, but I'm not really a faux meat crumbles girl, so I skipped it.

After heating the soup up and waiting for the Guiness to cook off, pour the soup into a pyrex dish. Wait a second for it to cool, because it will give the soup some "tackiness" which you will need.

Take the mashed potatoes you made earlier and spread them across the top of the soup, like a frosting or pie crust. You can also add some cheese or vegan cheese sprinkles over the top of the potatoes once you get them sprinkled in.

Put in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes. If the potatoes are browning and the "cheese" is melting, your dish is done.

This recipe made about a large pryex casorol dish and a half for us and served about 11 people. This could also be an excellent edition to your Thanksgiving table.