BY ANDREW WARNER
fashionfruit. managing editor
Listen to this week’s playlist and get ready for some hearty and warming autumn dishes: fashionfruit. week 27
Summer is finally over for me. And in just three days, it will actually be fall!
Now I can’t lie, I’m not the biggest fan of fall. In California the weather doesn’t really change too much until late November, so I’ve always felt like it was sort of just dragging on the extremely unpleasant heat of the summer, without all the relaxation and fun that comes along with summer vacation.
And if we’re being completely honest here, I’m not a huge fan of Halloween either – it brings up too many memories of dingy and sloppily put-together Halloween decor and costume pop-up shops in strip malls. So I don’t have a lot of nice things to say about the season.
But! I must say, fall and winter are by far my favorite times of year as far as seasonal foods are concerned. I absolutely adore all of the warming and delicious dishes prepared throughout these last few months of the year, hearty stews and roasted vegetables and not to mention all sorts of delectable desserts. So for one of my first dinners of the new season, I decided to prepare a vegan sweet potato shepherd’s pie.
Shepherd’s pie is one of the many foods that I never actually ate prior to going vegetarian. I really have no clue what it would actually taste like in its traditional preparation, because I’ve only ever had vegan or vegetarian versions, usually prepared with lentils or mushrooms as the main filling.
I deviated even further from convention in this recipe by using a sweet potato mash for the top, instead of the typical mashed potatoes that you would normally see in this dish. I think a big part of being a vegan is the experimentation that comes along with it – I’m not bound to all of the traditional rules that other cooks are, and that’s definitely one of my favorite parts of eating a plant-based diet.
This was also one of the first dinners I cooked in my new Westwood apartment. It’s definitely taking me some time to adjust to cooking in a new kitchen, but I’m absolutely loving the freedom of being able to cook whatever I want, whenever I want. While I don’t have access to all of the utensils and ingredients that I do at home, I’m learning to improvise and make due with what I have! For instance, while I was cooking the lentil stew filling, I realized I didn’t have a lid that fit the pot I was using, so I covered it with tin foil instead. Not a perfect fix, but it works in a pinch!
In the end, this dish worked out quite nicely, despite my understocked kitchen. The lentil stew filling was spicy and savory, working together with the richness of the creamy sweet potato mash to create that satisfying and cozy meal so characteristic of the incoming season.
recipe
sweet potato shepherd’s pie
for the sweet potato mash
1 large sweet potato, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tbsp fresh sage, chopped finely
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp vegan butter
1 tsp garlic powder (or 1 clove fresh garlic if you prefer)
Salt and pepper to taste
for the lentil stew filling
2 cups mirepoix (celery, carrots and onions finely diced)
1 cup green lentils
2/3 cup cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup kale, chopped
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup crushed tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp vegan butter
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
Cayenne pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste
Olive oil, to taste
- Prepare the sweet potato mash. Boil the sweet potato in a large pot filled with salted water until it’s fork tender. Drain and mash together with the sage, nutritional yeast, butter, garlic, salt and pepper. Set aside until ready to assemble the pie.
- Prepare the lentil stew filling. Sauté the mirepoix on medium-high heat in the vegan butter until the onions begin to brown. Then, add the mushrooms and sauté until they cook down, about 10 minutes total. Add the rosemary and garlic and continue to sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
- Add the lentils to the pot and cover with water. Bring it up to a boil and let simmer on medium-low for about 40 minutes, stirring often to ensure that the stew doesn’t burn to the pan. Be sure to add more water if it all evaporates, or else the vegetables will burn.
- Once the lentils are tender and start to breakdown into a thick stew, add the salt, cayenne pepper and tomatoes. Taste for seasoning and cook further if needed.
- Assemble the sweet potato shepherd’s pie. In a cast-iron pan or other oven-safe dish, add the lentil stew filling to the bottom of the pan. Then, add the sweet potato mash, covering the filling with large dollops of the mash. Flatten the mash down using a fork or other utensil, spreading the sweet potatoes across the entire dish and covering the lentils.
- Drizzle the olive oil over the top of the mash and put under a broiler for about 10 minutes, until the top is browned and crispy. Serve warm.
Got a question for Andrew? Email him at andrewjw@ucla.edu or tweet @awarner_db.
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