Cottage Pie

Vegan Mofo 2010 – Day 25
Back on the topic of comfort food I tried to make this for the first time years ago and have pretty much stuck to the recipe since then. There are a number of ways of doing this but this is probably the way I stick to most of the time.
Ingredients :
1 small to medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
A pinch of dried thyme
¼ teaspoon of dried oregano
1 400g tin of crushed tomatoes
4 or 5 medium potatoes peeled and diced into small cubes
1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard (or a mustard of your choice)
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon of Braggs or soy sauce
3 tablespoons of ketchup
1/8 of a cup of boiling water
Cooking oil for frying
Salt and pepper to taste
A sprinkle of paprika
2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of vegan margarine
200 grams of your favourite soy/tofu/seitan sausages or mince (I use Fry’s Vegetarian Traditional Sausages)
Place the potatoes in a steamer and steam until they’re starting to crumble.
Heat the cooking oil in a non-stick pot over a medium to high heat and add the onions. Let the onions cook until they’re starting to go translucent and then add the garlic, thyme and oregano. Stir-fry for a few seconds and then add the tin of tomatoes. Stir-fry for a few minutes and then drop the heat to medium and cover and allow to simmer.
Add the boiling water, mustard, white wine vinegar ketchup and soy sauce/Braggs into a mug and stir well. Add the mix to the tomato based sauce that has been simmering for 10 minutes or so and cover again and allow to cook for a minute or two more before adding your favourite soy/tofu/seitan sausages or mince (if the combination that you use needs to cooked in advance make sure it’s almost ready when adding it to the sauce as needs to be almost ready). Allow to simmer for another 4 or 5 minutes and then remove from heat.
Add the steamed potatoes to a bowl and then add baking powder, vegan margarine and salt and pepper to taste. Mash the potatoes until they’re light and fluffy.
Preheat the grill of the oven.
Place the tomato mixture in a casserole dish and make sure it covers the bottom evenly. Then slowly add the mashed potato over the tomato mix and using a fork make sure it covers the tomato sauce evenly. Make some patterns over the top of the mashed potato with a fork as those bits will become nice and crispy when grilled. Finally add the paprika evenly over the top of the mashed potato and then sprinkle with the fresh lemon juice before putting it in the oven under the grill. Leave in the over under the grilled until the top of the mashed potato becomes crispy and brown.

I served mine with some nice fresh green beans and peas.

This is my little kitchen helper Chloe making her first appearance on the interwebs. (to be honest she sat around pretending to look interested hoping that she would get a treat)