Garden Harvest Shepard's Pie
This thanksgiving I am sharing another full recipe from my book with all of you.
Happy Thanksgiving my friends!
The night time temps have taken a nose dive in the last few days here in Southern Ontario. Looks like we will be enjoying a feast for the eyes as well as a feast of garden harvests this thanksgiving!
Today I will be ‘taking a page out of my own book’ by making one of our favorite recipes called Garden Harvest Shepard's Pie.
It uses our Three Sisters harvests in a fun way and incorporates other foods gifted to us by the ancient peoples of these lands such as wild rice and cranberries.
This is a great way to use up some of that abundance of garden pumpkins in the fall (and/or a great way to use cheap pumpkins that are piled up everywhere around Halloween to make a very nutritious and satisfying meal).
I love to make this recipe as part of our Thanksgiving celebration meal as it includes many garden crops we grow and many crops that were introduced into our culture by those who called this land home before the settlers arrived from Europe.
Cooking the shepard's pie in a pumpkin adds not only flavor but also boost of nutrition to an already hearty and nourishing dish (plus it means with this Shepard's Pie you get to eat your 'baking dish' too! 🙂 ).
I serve our Garden Harvest Shepard's Pie with dairy free cheese melted on top and some Cranberry/ Goji berry sauce (another recipe from the book) on the side.
Garden Harvest Shepard's Pie
Ingredients:
- 2 small – medium sized pumpkins
- 2 medium-sized sweet potatoes
- 2 pounds of russet potatoes
- 3 cups of a solid non-gmo organic protein source that can offer a meaty consistency (such as tempeh, lentils, beans and/or wild rice)
- 2 medium-sized red onions, diced
- 1 - 2 tsp dried thyme
- 2 tbsp avocado or hemp oil
- 2 white onions, diced
- 1 – 2 tsp sage
- 1 tsp rosemary
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 1 tsp savory
- 2-3 cups mushrooms of your choice, sliced
- a splash of red wine
- 2-4 tbsp coconut oil (more as needed)
- a splash of hemp milk or cashew milk
-1 small can of tomato paste
- 3 cups of chopped spinach or kale (or Nettle and/or Amaranth Greens)
- 2 cups organic corn
- 2 cups organic sweet peas
- 2 medium to large carrots, sliced
- black pepper to taste
Preparation:
Begin by cutting the top of each pumpkin, carving out the seeds and pulp from the pumpkins.
Separate the seeds and rinse in a colander, then set aside and save for a different recipe. Add pulp to your compost bin. Set oven to 350F and bake pumpkins for 20-30 min (or until flesh is beginning to become tender but not mushy). Remove partially cooked pumpkins from the oven and set them aside while you prepare the other ingredients.
Chop up the sweet potatoes, russet potatoes and one red onion and add to a large pot. Add water, 2 tbsp coconut oil and the thyme, boil until tender and then strain out the water before mashing.
Add the non-dairy milk, some black pepper and 2 tbsp coconut oil and mash the mixture until smooth. Set aside. Begin to prepare the base filler of the shepherd's pie by adding some oil to a pan and simmering one diced onion, a pinch of rosemary, savory, 1/2 - 1 tsp sage and the bell pepper.
Simmer until onions are translucent and then add simulated meat or beans and tomato paste, simmer with lid on for 10-15 minutes to blend flavor (stirring every couple minutes to prevent sticking). Taste mixture and adjust seasoning if needed (eg add some hot sauce, more herbs or more wine).
Once it is done set aside and add the peas, carrots and corn to separate pots to boil until partially cooked but not mushy (4-7 minutes boiling). drain and add to different bowls for pie building. Fry sliced mushrooms with a bit of oil and one diced onion until soft, set aside.
Begin layering the garden shepherd's pie by adding a good amount of the protein base, then add the spinach layer, then the mushrooms, peas, carrots, corn.
When adding the mashed potatoes start at the edges of the pumpkin using a spoon and slide the spoon along the edge to seal the mashed potatoes against the pumpkin well. Fill in the middle with a nice thick layer and top with some dairy-free cheese before baking for 30-40 min (or until the top of mashed potatoes begins to crisp and get golden brown) on 350. Remove from oven when ready and allow the shepherd's pie 10-15 minutes to cool before serving. Serve with cranberry sauce or on its own with some fermented hot sauce on hand for seasoning to personal taste.
*Hint: Pumpkins work great as part of the "three sisters" companion planting system (consisting of a group of tall crops with a rigid stalk such as corn, amaranth, sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke etc... a climbing bean variety to climb up the taller companion and squash to grow at the base).
According to Iroquois legend, corn, beans, and squash are three inseparable sisters who only grow and thrive together. This tradition of interplanting corn, beans and squash in the same mounds, widespread among First Nation Indigenous societies of Turtle Island, is a sophisticated, regenerative growing system that provides long-term soil fertility and a healthy diet to generations. Growing a Three Sisters garden is a wonderful way to feel more connected to the history of this land, regardless of our ancestry. Early European settlers would certainly never have survived without the gift of the Three Sisters from the generous indigenous people’s who helped the settlers survive their first winters here on Turtle Island. In fact, that is the basis of the story behind our Thanksgiving celebration.
This year I am feeling thankful for the abundance Mother Earth provides in reciprocity when we care for her living soil. She even provides us the means to preserve and enhance our garden harvests for enjoying in the winter (through the beneficial microbes that are present on the produce itself which can initiate the process of fermentation if we create the right conditions). To you, the living planet Earth (who draws upon a seemingly endless wellspring of patience, unconditional love, generosity and grace expressed through the tolerance you afford us humans, despite humanity's prevalent degenerate behavior patterns).. I say Thank You.
I would like to now give thanks for the important work that our elder species (in the bacteria, fungi and archaea kingdoms) do on a daily basis which allow us to have air to breath, fertile soil to grow nutritious food in (and even a means for preserving and augmenting that nutritious produce) to create medicinal grade foods through fermentation.
To those members of the Lactobacillus, Saccharomyces, Aspergillus, Acetobacter, Leuconostoc, Bifidobacterium and Propionibacterium families that bring health and joy into our lives through creating poetry for the senses and a means to preserve our seasonal garden harvests.. I say Thank You.
This image above shows how we preserve some of our garden harvests at this time of year. Wild (or “Spontaneously initiated”) lacto-fermentation is a highly versatile, low tech and healthful way to preserve seasonal abundances into the winter months and future years. On the sides of the image above there are two jars of homemade Miso Paste (containing our homegrown Scarlet Runner Beans, Wild Rice Koji, Hokkaido Black Soy Beans, Shiitake Mushrooms and Atlantic Dulce seaweed).
Next is a jar of homegrown Fermented Turmeric Rhizome (it is the bright orange jar, and contains some Ginger Rhizome, Hot Peppers and black peppercorns mixed in).
The one with the green contents is fermented garlic cloves (with some homegrown Ginger Rhizome, homegrown Turmeric Rhizome and black peppercorns mixed in).
Last but not least, is a Fermented Pepper Mash made with 100% homegrown Chiltepin peppers from our garden. These preserves can last from 6 months to many years in our cellar and they provide bright flavors and nutrient dense (probiotic rich) food and powerful medicine throughout the months when not much is growing in our garden outside.
I would also like to give thanks to the countless generations of determined, diligent and reverent farmers, gardeners and medicine women/men who saved seed from the best crops to create the heirloom varieties of produce we grow today. Your efforts have shared many gifts with your descendants, (and through the work of those of us who cherish what you co-created) your efforts will continue to benefit countless generations into the future. Thank you to the ancient ones who cared for the living Earth and wisely saved the seeds so we could have the abundance and diversity of food we have today.
If we learn from our ancestors, those that called the land we now live on home before we (or our ancestors arrived here) and our Mother Nature and accept her open hand we can thrive and nurture our bodies in any and all situations (while staying guided by integrity and love).
We can align our wealth and health with the health and wealth of the living Earth and through merging with her regenerative capacity and inherent abundance we can become irrepressible, guided by love and co-create resilient communities with integrity to gift onto future generations.
Wishing you all a peaceful, healthful and joyous thanksgiving my friends!
"Give thanks for everything that you receive. In an economy that urges us to always want more, the practice of gratitude and random acts of kindness are truly a radical acts. Thankfulness for all that is given makes you feel rich beyond measure, where wealth is counted as having enough to share. Gratitude pulls us into relationship with other entities, reminding us that our very existence is in their hands. And gratitude is humbling – an antidote to the arrogance of our time. It reminds us that we are just one member in the democracy of species. It reminds us again, that the earth does not belong to us.
Gratitude is our first, but not our only gift. We are storytellers, music makers, devisers of ingenious machines, healers, scientists, and lovers of an Earth who asks that we give our own unique gifts on behalf of life. Let us live in a way that Earth will be grateful for us."
- Robin Wall Kimmerer
The recipe above is from my book (cover shown in image below).
For those interested in purchasing a physical copy of the book you can do so through this link:
Thank you, Gavin, for the bounty of your old soul wisdom & knowledge & for sharing these amazing recipes in the new world.
I thank God for you!
The pumpkin was an unexpected, yet interesting twist. I want to try that now.