Pie-day Friday – cottage pies

I had potatoes to use up last week from the last veg delivery I got. My potato go-to is wedges, because the effort-to-taste ratio is very favourable and you don’t have to peel them, but I don’t find wedges very satisfying unless they’ve got a goodly amount of oil in the coating, whereas mash can take being lightened up without losing its main appeal. And the reason I’m talking about fat content all of a sudden is that I’m currently trying to lose weight for a ’20lb challenge’, even though the food I’ve posted so far may not make that very obvious!

So, mash on top of some kind of well-seasoned protein-and-veg goop is a standard going back through the centuries, and veg*n takes on this concept will be familiar to many people going back several decades. This may look like a very 80’s throwback thing, I prefer to think of it as a classic :p

 

 

 

 

Cottage pie or shepherds pie? I guess the name doesn’t matter in a non-meaty version, I’ve also seen similar looking things called hunter’s pies, however my mum always makes hunter’s pies using layers of sliced potatoes, so I tried a take on that too…

 

As the filling I’d made had some pureed chickpeas as well as whole ones, the texture of the slices was a better contrast.

These were a nice enough supper. The base mix was a bit average, so I won’t post a recipe, but just to give you some idea it had mushrooms, chickpeas, onions, tomato and carrot in it, and I tried out some dried chipotles for the first time as part of the seasoning – being a bit heavy handed with these was probably the reason they didn’t turn out 5-star. I’m always happy to perfect my pie technique by practising though!

 

 

 

 

 

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