Interlude: Shepherd's Pie

 

Necessity was the mother of invention here, but look how lovely it was! Sort of. I didn't plan for the shepherd's pie mix to bubble up over the potatoes. But it did, and that means you also get to see the pretty color of the shepherd's pie mix.

I didn't follow an exact recipe here. I made a base of TVP, carrots, onions, broth, tomato paste, red wine, vegan Worcestershire, soy sauce, liquid smoke, ketchup, and seasonings (marjoram, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar), thickened with corn starch. I topped that with some mashed potatoes mixed with frozen spinach I'd thawed and drained. I then baked it until bubbly and browned a bit, and there you have it: dinner for a week.

Over the past several months, I've been consistently only shopping in person about half as often as I used to, but I find the last meals I make toward the end of my long avoidance of grocery stores pretty hard to find inspiring, somehow. I like more fresh veggies. But I needed to use stuff up, and this is how I've been doing it. I never intend to avoid the store, but somehow it's been happening. This is starting to trigger an impulse to overbuy, so I'm pondering making myself go slightly more frequently.

Still, the food I make in that bit is often really satisfying. It's so hard to say!

Recently, I saw a video on YouTube by the Viet Vegan, where she said that since trying to eat her own pantry stocks down, she's found that 25% of the time, she makes what she wants, and 75% of the time, she makes things she has to make in order to use things she already has, and that's about where I am with things right now. But we're holding steady and learning new habits. It's kind of a win. Sort of.

The shepherd's pie was delicious, but I added sriracha when I was eating. The kick helped things a bit.