A lot has happened this year. Get a job: check. Move to a new state: check. Convert from FTP uploading with Google Blogger to custom domain blogging: shudder, and check. (FYI, Google, it didn't have to be that hard, and you officially suck at writing instructions. But that's not important.)
I came here today to do something I haven't done in a long time: write about something I made. In MY OWN APARTMENT. (This is where you smile indulgently.)
This is the dish that is usually called either "shepherd's pie" or "cottage pie," which, according to Wikipedia, is made with ground beef or lamb as a means to use up leftover meat. The catch being, in my case, that I don't eat meat and therefore didn't need to use it up in anything. But shepherd's pie is more than meat, right? It's like, vegetables and potatoes and stuff. So instead of making a pie out of what a shepherd would eat (a bunch of dead lambs), I am making a pie out of what a wee sheepie might eat (a bunch of dead plants). Get it? Sheepie's pie? It wasn't actually my idea.
As a non-fan of mock meat, I wanted to use something that could substitute and yet exists as a food in its own right. Enter tempeh. Lovely, lumpy tempeh. It's a fermented soybean product, originating in Indonesia. It uses the whole soybean and, because it's cultured, is pre-digested for you by a bunch of bacteria, so it's easy on the gut. And full of protein (by the way, don't believe everything you read about soy. It's not a miracle food, and it's not giving you cancer - at least, not in a form like tempeh).
Thank you once more, Veganomicon, for instructing me on one of the many awesome ways to insert flavor into tempeh.
SHEEPIE'S PIE
some red potatoes (1 lb? 2 lb?)
8 oz tempeh
~3 tbsp soy sauce
1 cup water
garlic
buttermilk
butter
salt
pepper
a few handfuls of fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, and/or oregano)
olive oil
onion
mushrooms (1/3 or 1/2 lb)
more herbs
more garlic
~1 cup walnuts or pecans
~1 1/2 - 2 cups fresh or frozen peas, corn kernels, and/or diced steamed carrots, mixed together
some kind of hard/old cheese, like parmesan or asiago or romano
1. Bring a bunch of water in a pot to a boil, and salt it liberally (1 tbsp per half gallon). Cut your (clean) potatoes into chunks. I don't care how big they are, but make them relatively the same size. Toss them into the boiling water, and boil them for 15-20 minutes, depending on how big the chunks are. When a fork glides right into a potato chunk in the deepest part, with no uncomfortable crunch or excess starchiness, they're done and you can drain them.
2. While the potatoes are boiling away, crumble your tempeh up into little bits, and stick it in a saucepan with the soy sauce and water. The tempeh should be almost covered.
Cover it with a lid and boil for 10 minutes, then take off the lid and turn down the heat, and cook off the rest of the liquid. Stir it every so often to make sure it's not welding to the bottom of the pan. The tempeh should look all brown and lovely. When the liquid is gone, take the tempeh off the heat and set it aside for later.
3. Heat up the oven to 375 F and make sure the oven rack is in the middle, or slightly below it.
4. Take those potatoes, all drained of water... and mash them. Mash them up good, skins and everything, inside your big pot. Add a couple of cloves of pressed/minced garlic while you're mashing (the heat of the potatoes will semi-cook the garlic). Also add a bit of fresh herbs (cut them up first, though).
This is when it's kind of fun. Add a bunch of buttermilk (maybe a cup? depends on how many potatoes you had... just until it looks nice and creamy), some butter (a few tablespoons, maybe half a stick), and some pepper, and mix it 'til the butter melts. It should look AMAZING. If it's a little dry, add some more butter and buttermilk. Don't be shy with the high-fat dairy products. You want it to be delicious, right? And you're only going to be having a small amount in a serving anyway. Taste for seasoning and add salt, pepper, butter, or herbs as needed.
5. Sautee up some onions in oil. You should know how to do this. Use maybe a cup or a little less of medium-diced onions.
Sautee them until translucent and starting to brown.
6. While the onions are cooking, roughly chop up some mushrooms. I forgot to clean mine before cutting them, so I just soaked them in some water after cutting them up, strained them in my salad spinner, and spread them out on a cloth napkin to dry. I guess you're not really supposed to "wash" mushrooms in water, but I don't think it matters that much. They get clean.
7. When the onions look ready, dump in the mushrooms. And press a few more cloves of garlic in with them. And add some more chopped herbs, and grind in some pepper.
Cook it all together until the mushrooms get nice and soft and dark and cooked-looking.
8. While it's cooking, chop your nuts finely. You can use a nut grinder if you want, just don't make them into a flour or a paste or anything.
9. Add the tempeh and the nuts to the onion/mushroom mix when it's ready, and stir it up and take it off the heat. Taste it and add pepper if needed. I doubt you'll need salt, but add some if you do.
10. Take a nice glass baking dish, say, 9x13 or something. I don't actually know the dimensions of mine, but it was a little small. It doesn't really matter, actually. Dump all your tempeh, mushrooms, etc. into the dish and spread it around so it's even. On top of it, sprinkle your mixed vegetables. I used frozen because it was convenient, and nothing is ever in season in Arizona except cactus and tomatoes.
11. Put a few piles of your mashed potatoes on top of the mixed vegetables. It should be pretty thick, so it might be hard to spread. Do the best you can. I find that flattening the piles works pretty well.
You can keep adding more until you have enough to cover, and however much extra you might want.
12. Grate on some cheese. I used Pecorino Romano for flavor along with a little Monterey Jack for meltiness. You can use anything you want, except maybe gorgonzola, which would conflict with the soy sauce in the tempeh and make the whole thing taste moldy. You really would be unhappy with the end result.
13. Stick it in the oven, and keep it there for 45 minutes or so. Take it out when it's making noise (kind of a crispy gurgling sound) and looks lightly browned. Then you can eat it, but be sure you don't burn your mouth on the potatoes, because they'll be quite hot.
If I could revise this recipe, I'd use a mushroom stock and some red wine to simmer the tempeh in, instead of soy sauce. I liked it, but not enough. Don't get me wrong, though, this was pretty delicious.
By the way, I sometimes take pictures of my food at odd angles. It's generally because I'm trying to avoid casting a shadow on my food with my camera, and it's difficult to position with overhead artificial light. Plus, it looks kind of cute.
