Shephards Pie

About 3-4 weeks before I went veggie, I had my first shephards pie ever. And oh. My. God. It was seriously some of the best I had ever tasted! I made a deal with my self, that I had to start making shepherds pie a lot more often. But then I went veggie and I slowly forgot about it, until I started thinking "What if I just made it with vegetables instead?". And so I did. I wanted to make it with tomatoes and carrots, but tripped over a picture on Pinterest, that inspired me to make it with mushrooms, spinach and lentils. And boy, it turned out great!

4 persons
What do I need?
6 medium potatoes
1 tbsp margarine

1 cup of dried, green lentils
A splash of oil
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
150 g mushrooms
2 tbsp red wine (you can leave it out, if you don't want to open a bottle for it)
1 tbsp dried thyme
A pinch of cayenne pepper (or chili, if you like it hot!)
150 g frech spinach
1 tbsp cornstarch

A handful of breadcrumps


How do I do?
Peel the potatoes and cut them into smaller pieces. Boil them in salted water until tender (about 20 minutes) and drain them. Mash the potatoes and stir the margarine in it. Now, we need these smashed potatoes to get nice and creamy. The ideal solution would be to use a bit of soy milk. However, I didn't have any (mostly because it's quite expensive where I live) so I used a bit of water instead, which actually worked really great! Set these yummy, smashed potatoes aside.

Now, rinse the lentils and boil them - this shouldn't take long. Chop the onions and garlic and fry them shortly in the heated oil. Add the chopped mushrooms and let it fry for a few moments. Add the cooked lentils and a bit of the water along with the spices, redwine and spinach. You can add the spinach in leaves, but I chose to chop them roughly. Just let it get wilted down. Let it simmer for a few minutes and mix the the cornstarch with a bit of water. Add it to the lentil mixture and stir well.

Preheat the oven at 200 Celcius/400 Fahrenheit
Lightly oil a casserole dish and spread the breadcrumps in it - just enough to cover the bottom. Spread the lentil mixture in it and cover with the smashed potatoes. If you're feeling artistic, you can make a pattern in it. Bake in the oven for about half an hour or until the top is golden.

Granola

Granola is some kind of muesli, that's toasted in honey. It has actually become quite popular during the last year or so. You can make your own personal version with whatever kind of seeds, nuts and dried fruit. And maybe, you can even make different version for each day - oh la la! That way, you won't have the same for breakfast every day and you'll keep thinking that it's an exiting and delish breakfast - I know one of my problems is, that I'll just get too tired of it in the long run, if I get the same for breakfast every single morning...
These amounts gave me enough granola for about a week. You could probably make for two weeks, as long as you store it in an airtight container.

What do I need?
4 tbsp honey

1/2 cup almonds

1/2 cup pumpkinseeds

1/2 cup flaxseeds

1/4 cup shredded coconut

1 cup quick oats

1/2 cup dried cranberries


How do I do?
Melt the honey in a frying pan and add all the other ingredients. Let it all get well coated in the honey and pour it out on a piece of baking paper - be careful, the honey gets really hot! Let it cool down until the honey has hardened again. Keep it in an air-tight container and keep it away from direct sunlight.