Veggie Cottage Pie topped with Sweet Potato Mash

We do love a cottage pie around here, an invariably popular option with The Monsters. Like most families it’a a bit of a winter staple and the perfect huggy antidote to these cold and dank long days. Ordinarily I make mine with good quality beef mince and ‘veg it up’ with a whole host of finely chopped veggies, AKA a fridge clearing exercise. A great way to inject lots of good stuff into little tums and particularly with the veggies they’re less enamoured with, just make sure they’e unidentifiably tinily diced. Do check out my Seasonally Vegged-Up Cottage Pie recipe from a couple of years ago, it’s a goodie.

My recipe today’s gone one healthy step further and cut out the meat altogether. Replacing the protein with Quorn mince and lovely Puy lentils (though you could use ordinary green or brown ones). Of course there’s a barrage of veggies too, along with the usual suspect onions, carrots and celery I added nearly half a kilo of finely sliced green beans, diced butternut and celeriac and a few handfuls of miscellaneous finely shredded greens. And if that’s not enough veggies to fill your boots there’s a sweet potato mash top, subtly flavoured with a grating of nutmeg. Naturally vegetarian too it’s an uber-healthy family favourite of a dish, make that vegan if you use a dairy free soya spread in the mash as I do.

We’re on the whole diary-free again round here, omitting cows milk to try and cure Jacques nasty winter cough. The same flemmy hacking nighttime cough he’s had for the four winters since he was born, the cough he’s had countless trip to the doctors about over the years but as yet has remained undiagnosed. Not one has seemed terribly bothered about it. Admittedly it’s not exactly life threatening but the lack of sleep and inherent winter grumpiness this in turns brings to the whole family isn’t joyous. But on a very positive note I’ve discovered a temporary cure myself. Putting J on a rigid cows milk, yogurt and cheese-free diet definitely improves the cough, at least until the next winter cold anyway. Then we start the cycle again. And just as all the doc’s say I’m sure he’ll grow out of it one of these years, fingers crossed eh!.

I’m entering a few challenges with my Cottage Pie, so here goes:

1) As Family Foodies (which I co-host with Vanesther aka Bangers & Mash) is going all healthy for the New Year, I’m entering my recipe to this month’s challenge. Obviously exempt myself, there’s a prize of a fab fun Moleculur Gastronomy set up for grabs for the winning recipe, so do join in with your healthy recipe posts.

2) To Utterly Scrummys and Fuss Free Flavours ‘Extra Veg’ event.

3) To Citrus Spice’s ‘In My Veg Box’ event which so happens to be Sweet Potatoes this month, hosted for January by Heidi Robert’s Kitchen Talk.