Batch Cook: Shepherds Pie

A delicious dairy and gluten free, protein-filled pie that freezes well.

Preparation: 1 hour | Cooking: 2 hours | Serves: 12-14

Please note that this is so much food, I cook the main ingredients in a commercial grade kitchen 20 L pot. If you don’t have access to a very big pot, be prepared to split the ingredients into more manageable sizes as you do your preparation.

Ingredients

Pie contents

Sauce

• 400 grams         Condensed tomato soup
• 2 cups               Prepared Gravox original gravy (ensure its GF in your country)
• 4 tablespoons   Tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon     Mixed Italian herbs (dried)

Mash

• 5 kilograms       Potatoes, peeled and diced to roughly 2 cm blocks
• 400 ml              Coconut cream
• 1 teaspoon        Salt

Directions

1. Firstly, get the potatoes cooking in boiling water. Cooking time will vary so check on them every now and then until they’re soft enough to break apart.
2. Place the onions, mince and mushrooms in a frying pan. Brown the mixture until it’s about half cooked. Drain and set aside.
3. Pour all the sauce ingredients into a bowl or jug and blend until smooth.
4. Combine the carrots, garden beans, peas, lentils and adzuki, cannellini and borlotti beans in your big pot.
5. Pour the sauce into the pot and stir. At this stage, all ingredients should be well covered in sauce and stir smoothly. If the mixture is clumpy, add more gravy.
6. Bring to the boil, stirring regularly to avoid burning.
7. Stir in the beef/mushroom/onion mix in and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Note well: the mixture should not be fully cooked at this stage.
8. Empty the can of coconut cream into a bowl. If it looks separated, blend it until the composition is smooth and creamy.
9. Drain your cooked diced potatoes and place in (probably several) bowl(s).
10. While mashing the potatoes, mix in the coconut cream and salt. Add water if the mixture needs it.
11. Now it’s time to combine the contents into containers and top it with mash.

I’m usually cooking this for dinner as well as for freezing, so I put a generous amount of my mix + mash into a 2L Pyrex bowl.

To finish cooking this meal immediately:

• Bake at 180 C for 30 minutes uncovered, or until the mash starts to crust and turn golden.

Freezing for the future

For the storage of the excess, partially cooked ingredients I use aluminium BBQ baking trays of single or double serve sizes. I put it all together, cover it with foil and wrap in plastic wrap before I freeze it.

To finish cooking these once they’re frozen:

• Remove all plastic and place in a preheated oven at 180 C for 60 minutes covered, then another 30 minutes uncovered or until the mash starts to crust golden.