Dairy Free Soy Free Shepherd’s Pie

This is a slightly quicker take on the tradition meal, mostly because I save myself the effort of cutting up lots of vegetables by using precut frozen ones.  It’s also a great comfort food for a rainy day and I feel like I can sneak in all kinds of vegetables without protest because they are covered by fluffy delicious mashed potatoes.

Servings: 6

Ingredients:

• 4 large russet potatoes
• 1 16 oz bag of frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 lbs ground beef
• 1 diced yellow onion
• ½ cup rice or coconut milk
• 1 can tomato soup
• ½ cup water
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• pepper to taste
• dash of paprika

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Peel and dice potatoes into1 inch squares. Place them in a medium saucepan and cover them with water. Bring the water to boil using high heat, once boiling turn heat down and simmer the potatoes for 10 minutes or until soft and easy to crush.
3. While potatoes are cooking add the ground beef to a skillet with the onion and cook over medium heat until the ground beef is cooked through.  Drain the grease and return the ground beef and cooked onion to the skillet. 
4. Thaw the 16 oz bag of vegetables in the microwave. Once thawed add them to the ground beef onion mixture with a can of tomato soup and ½ cup of water.  Stir to combine and simmer over medium heat.  Mix in salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.
5. Once the meat and vegetable mixture is heated thoroughly transfer the mixture to a glass 9x13 baking pan and spread it evenly across the bottom of the pan.
6. Once potatoes are soft drain the water from them and add a ½ cup of coconut or rice milk to the potatoes and blend with a hand mixer until smooth.  If the potatoes seem too thick add another ¼ cup of milk.
7. Once the potatoes are mashed place big spoonfulls of them in baking dish on top of the meat/vegetable mixture and use a spatula to spread them evenly across the dish.
8. Sprinkle a little bit of salt and paprika on the top of the potatoes and place them in the oven for 20 minutes or until the potatoes start to brown. (*Note: If you're potatoes are still warm and you don't care about crisping them you can skip this step and just enjoy them white and fluffy)
9. Remove from oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.