Upside-Down Shepherd's Pie

                                       from My Veggie Kitchen


**WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY-SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING TO BRING YOU THE FOLLOWING LATE-BREAKING NEWS**:

My boyfriend likes to put Bac-Os on everything.
And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING.

I waggled my wtf-eyeball at him when he kept tossing them on some of the pasta dishes I'd made.

But then the one time, he shook them all over my fettucine alfreda, and I was like, Dude, not EVERYTHING needs Bac-Os. Until he convinced me to try it. And I realized that it actually DID taste good with Bac-Os. So I thought, Perhaps he's right after all.

Until this weekend.

This weekend, I made us this upside-down shepherd's pie. And seriously: It was the bomb. It's super-fricking easy, but it's totally yumtastic belly-warming winter food. He took a couple bites, and his eyes lit up. "Holy shit. This is like the best thing ever," he blurted between bites. Then 10 seconds later: the dude is totally shaking Bac-Os all over it.

Now, pasta: I can see. But shepherd's pie? That I tossed a bit of sage into to give it a kind of chicken-pot-pie flavor? AND BAC-OS?!?! I'm sorry, dude: no. That's just gross.

But I think perhaps he's becoming a bad influence. Because the day before, I totally had a hankering for Bac-Os, and I whipped up a quick pasta dish that ended up being delish (some margarine, Bac-Os, flour, veggie broth, nooch, and garlic powder, which tasted strikingly similar to a previous pasta carbonara recipe I've made before and love, but with only half the cooking time):



So: Damn the boy. And damn Bac-Os. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

But whatever you do, don't damn this shepherd's pie recipe, 'cause it's damn motherf-ing good. No lie. And I don't even like tater tots.

**WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY-SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING**




INGREDIENTS:

• 6 c. mashed potatoes


• 1 lb tater tots (half a bag)


• 3 T. Earth Balance Margarine


• 1 small onion, chopped


• 2 cloves garlic, minced


• 2 c. broccoli florets


• 1/4 lb mushrooms, sliced


• 1/4 c. flour


• 1/2 c. frozen peas


• 1/2 c. frozen corn


• 1 can chickpeas, drained


• 2 c. vegetable broth


• 1/2 c. soy milk


• 2 T. nutritional yeast


• 1/2 t. salt


• 1/4 t. pepper


• A shake or two of sage powder (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Melt margarine in a sauce pan. Add onion and mushrooms and saute until soft. Stir in garlic and broccoli and cook until the garlic is aromatic. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly for a couple minutes longer. Add the remaining filling ingredients. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently and remove from heat and set aside. The sauce should have thickened a bit.

Spread mashed potatoes in a 9 x 13 casserole, spreading some of the potatoes up the sides. Pour in the gravy and veggies. Spread tater tots over the top. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 45-60 minutes, until the tater tots are browned and the gravy is bubbly.

COOK'S TIPS:

This can be made with any combination of veggies that you want and can be as simple as mixing a bag of frozen veggies with gravy and adding a can of beans or seitan strips. Just make sure you have five or six cups of filling. Also, I kept the nutritional yeast to a minimum at my kids' request. I ended up sprinkling some extra over the top for myself. You may just want to add some more.

(Recipe from My Veggie Kitchen)