Palanca's mock shepherd's pie

In trying to find a suitable substitute for meat-based shepherd's pie, I found a few recipes for a lentil-based version.

I played around with some of the flavours and came up with the following. Let me know if it works out for you - or if you have any further suggestions for making it even better.

PREP TIME: Little more than an hour.

1) In a medium-sized pot, pour two cups of green lentils into four cups of water. Add a veggie bouillon cube. Let the lentils boil for approx. 40 minutes, or until they get soft. You will probably have to add more water.

You might want to start preparing the potatoes right now as well. See #4.

2) In a frying pan: one medium-sized onion (diced) and two cloves garlic (crushed). You can even toss in a few sliced mushrooms for added flavour. Saute the onion and garlic with fresh thyme, as well as cumin and coriander. When the onions are soft, add the lentils. Mix the lentils and onion mixture with salsa or tinned tomatoes.

3) Lay the lentils on the bottom of a casserole dish. Open one can of corn and toss the kernels on top.

4) Peel and cube one large sweet potato and four medium-sized potatoes (yellow is best). Boil the cubes for approx. 30 minutes. Mash up the taters with butter and brown sugar. Layer the potatoes on top of the corn and lentils.

5) Place casserole dish in preheated 400-degree oven for 15 minutes. Then broil for 5-7 minutes for extra crunchiness on top. Like a nice brown crust? Add some curls of butter before the broil.

Serve hot, hot, hot!

*Snap borrowed from Made-in-China.com.