Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie

It’s good to have a vegetarian dish that meat-eaters will love too, and this one benefits from being extremely inexpensive to make.

I once had to make a main dish for a potluck held to benefit about 35 – 40 refugee women, mostly from Central Africa and Bhutan, who had a variety of religious dietary restrictions. It was wintertime so I wanted the food to be hot. I wanted it to be hearty and nutritious. It needed to be inexpensive because it was for a non-profit. The dish also needed to be easy to make because of the large quantity of food required to feed that many people.

I thought a vegetarian shepherd’s pie would be a good way to go. I found an excellent recipe that would fit a two-quart baking dish that used lentils, barley and Vegemite as the meat substitute. There was a vegetable portion to the recipe that was made from scratch and mashed potatoes made from scratch also. I needed to size-up the quantity massively and also find a way to get out of doing so much prep work on the vegetables and mashed potatoes.

I decided to use the most inexpensive form of frozen mixed vegetables I could buy and to use boxed instant mashed potatoes. Frozen vegetables are actually very nutritious. Instant mashed potatoes are simply dehydrated potatoes; there’s nothing all that weird about them.

The most inexpensive form of frozen mixed vegetables are combinations of carrots, corn, peas, green beans and lima beans. Online reviews of instant mashed potatoes overwhelmingly praised Idahoan Original Instant Mashed Potatoes as being the best.

Testing in small batches revealed several points:

1. The vegetables needed to be steamed first in order to cook out the rawness.
2. Each layer needed to be well-seasoned.
3. Lots of butter needed to be used in the vegetable and potato layers. It was especially important to have an ample amount of fat to keep the leftovers from being completely dried out when reheated.

I layered everything in an 18-quart electric roaster oven and was able to feed over 35 people for a little under $30 by getting the mixed vegetables on sale. The dish was a big hit and people took home leftovers.

I’ll probably never make a batch that size again so, in order to enjoy this at home, I needed to reverse engineer the recipe back down to a reasonable size. This recipe fills a two-quart baking dish nicely.

Directions:

Faux “Meat” Layer:

• ½ cup Dry Lentils
• ⅓ cup Pearled Barley
• 2 ½ cups Vegetable Stock
• 2 tsp. Vegemite or Marmite

Combine 2 ½ cups vegetable stock, 2 tsp. Vegemite or Marmite, ½ cup dry lentils and ⅓ cup pearled barley and simmer until the lentils and barley are cooked until tender and the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Layer onto the bottom of a two-quart baking dish.

Vegetable Layer:

• 12 oz. frozen Mixed Vegetables (carrots, corn, peas, green beans and lima beans)
• 2 tbsp. Butter
• ½ tsp. Sea Salt
• 1 tsp. Ground Black Pepper
• ½ tsp. Granulated Garlic

Thaw the mixed vegetables, bring water to a boil and steam for about 5 – 7 minutes. You don’t want them to turn to mush, but you want to cook out some of the raw flavor. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in the vegetables and add ½ teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, and ½ teaspoon granulated garlic. Layer on top of the lentils and barley.

Mashed Potato Layer:

• 1 ⅓ cups Idahoan Original Instant Mashed Potatoes
• 1 ⅓ cups Water
• ⅔ cup Milk (⅓ cup milk and ⅓ Half n’ Half is a nice combo)
• 5 tbsp. Butter
• ½ tsp. Sea Salt
• 1 tsp, Ground Black Pepper
• ½ tsp. Granulated Garlic

Topping for Mashed Potatoes:

• 1 tbsp. Butter, melted

Combine 1 ⅓ cups water, ½ tsp. sea salt, 1 tsp. ground black pepper, ½ tsp. granulated garlic and 5 tbsp. butter and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

Add ⅔ cup cold milk; stir in 1 ⅓ cups Idahoan Original Instant Mashed Potatoes gently and let stand until moist. Layer on top of the vegetables and run a fork over the top of the mashed potatoes to create ridges throughout. The ridges make lovely browned bits when baked. Drizzle 1 tbsp. of melted butter over the mashed potato layer.

Bake in an oven that has been preheated to 350° F. for 30 minutes. Switch the oven to the broiler setting and bake until the top is browned, about 5 minutes.

Notes:

Vegemite was developed in Australia as a response to shortages of Marmite from England during World War One. Marmite had been for sale in England since 1902 and, love it or hate it, Marmite was a nutrient-dense food that had an extremely long shelf-life at a time when malnutrition was common. Wartime only made the need for Marmite and Vegemite more important.

The process for making it was developed by German scientist Justus von Liebig in the late 1800s from the yeast that was leftover from brewing beer. It’s packed with umami flavor and is a potent vegan source of B vitamins and minerals. Marmite and Vegemite were included in rations for soldiers because it helped combat outbreaks of beriberi and other deficiency diseases.

Because of the link to Australia, I am throwing in a memorial to the person who had my all-time favorite singing voice, Judith Durham, who was a member of the Australian folk music group, The Seekers, and who passed away in 2022. She possessed an extraordinary voice which she maintained like a fine Stradivarius until late in life. This clip is a great example of their sound. I love how the guys are wearing suits and skinny ties and have such earnest expressions on their faces.