Help with squash shepherds pie

lucky14

Mon, Oct 16 2017, 3:46 pm

I want to make some kind of vegetarian shepherds pie but can only use the ingredients I have at home.

I have squash that I want to use as the "potato" topping. I have either vegetarian meat crumbles or cut up veggie "chicken" strips for the, onions & frozen mixed veggies for the bottom. What do I mix in with them to give them more flavor & to make sure it isn't too dry? I have a can of cream of mushroom soup but that isn't so healthy and a lot more sodium than I want my toddler to have. I don't have any tomatoes or canned tomatoes. No tomato sauce. I do have ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. No vegetable stock, but I do have soup bullion (not healthy but is it better then the canned soup?). Any ideas?

cbg

Mon, Oct 16 2017, 4:06 pm

Here's what I would do.
I would slice the onions, lightly carmelize, then add water and a pinch of salt and pepper Let it cook, like an onion soup, until it reduces and gets concentrated.
Take out 1/3 the onions, and with the rest blend with an immersion blender.
Add the onions back.
Use this as a base sauce.

Sauté the "meat" with the frozen mixed veggies, season to taste.

Mix the base sauce with the "meat" mixture.
Put this on the bottom of the pan.

Grate the squash. Add egg, salt, pepper.

Layer on top of "meat" mixture.

Bake until squash is cooked and set.

It's an experiment, don't know if it will be any good.

When you say squash, do you mean yellow zucchini, or butternut squash?

Maybe layer it squash, "meat", squash.

lucky14

Mon, Oct 16 2017, 4:14 pm

cbg wrote:

Thanks, this sounds good! Butternut squash. It's actually already cooked so I think I'm just going to mix a little bit of butter in and season and put that on top of the meat/veggie mixture. I'll let you know how your experiment turns out Smile

lucky14

Mon, Oct 16 2017, 11:12 pm

Thanks cbg. I made this and it turned out yummy. I was making pea soup at the time so I took a few spoonfuls of the liquid from that and added it to the "meat" mixture and it gave it a really good flavor. Totally worked out.