Vegan Cottage Pie

It's been 5 months. Sorry.

I am going to use 3rd year as an excuse, those of you who have been through, or are in, 3rd year are hearing me right now.

Dave and I have discovered a couple new student vegan recipes to fulfill your deepest veggie fantasies without having to apply to the local strip club to fund them.

This recipe is a staple of Dave and I and it can last up to 4 nights which means it's super easy on the wallet. "It's cheap, vegan and super fantastically delicious?! This is too good to be true Che'! There has to be a catch!" You  may say with overly an animated voice of question. Well, unfortunately there is reader of Che's imagination. This recipe takes quite a while to prepare but the fact that you wont have to cook for the next 3 nights makes up for it.

Here you go!

Cottage pie

Ingredients:

·         2 onions (chopped)

·         2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

·         A bag of brown lentils

·         A box of soya mince

·         A bag a peas and corn

·         A butternut (peeled and chopped or sliced)

·         A sweet potato (peeled and chopped or sliced)

·         2 cups of Vegetable stock

·         Thyme

Method:

·         Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

·         In a pan, heat up some oil and then caramelise the onions and the garlic with some salt and mixed herbs

·         Once the onions are caramelised, add the mixed frozen veg and cook until the veg are soft. Remove from heat while waiting for the lentils

·         In a separate pot, boil the lentils until soft. Drain and then add to the onion mix with the 2 cups of vegetable stock and thyme.

·         In a separate pot, add 4-5 cups of boiling water and add the soya mince. Stir quite often and watch this pot carefully as soya mince can be notoriously difficult to cook

·         For the butternut and sweet potato there are a few options on how to prepare them:

o   Place in a roasting pan and roast until soft, then place in a bowl and mash

o   Or, boil in a separate pot and then place in a bowl and mash

o   Or, steam then in a steaming pot, then place in a bowl and mash

o   Optional: add some soya milk when mashing to make slightly creamier

·         Place the lentil and onion mix and soya mince into a large baking dish (we usually find that this makes enough mix to make 2 cottage pies, in which case you can freeze the extra to make another pie at a later date – #mealprep)

·         Spread the mashed butter and sweet potato over the filling and then place in the oven until there is a nice crust on the butternut and sweet potato.

t     P.S: To make this recipe even cheaper you can just make some mash potato to put as the pie topper.

Cost: +- R120

Serves: each pie makes 4-5 servings