Column: Karen Wright - Vegan cottage pie with a dash of Irish and Greek

When I first heard the phrase, plant based, I was thinking it meant house plants or shrubs in the garden and I couldn’t imagine those as ingredients in my cooking.

Of course, it just means all the fruits, vegetables, seeds and pulses that we are familiar with already to replace meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese and so on.

Nowadays there are lots of products in the supermarkets to incorporate into vegan meals too, it is becoming a very popular lifestyle choice for many people.

I am not a vegan, but I do recognise the benefits of reducing our meat intake, so I try to make tasty vegetarian or vegan meals a couple of times a week. Remember though, it need not be a faff - a jacket potato with baked beans is a vegan meal and an all-time favourite for many of us.

The recipe this week is just a twist on cottage pie. To make it vegan I used a soya product instead of mince and cooked it the same method as a regular cottage pie using onion and carrots to make a tasty base.

For the mashed potato topping I really went full on twist and mashed the potato with cooked cabbage which makes it Irish Colcannon. But then I used olive oil and white wine vinegar instead of milk and butter which makes it Greek! So, the topping was an Anglo-Irish Greek mash. The Greeks call their mash Skordalia and it is delish!

My husband John, who is very conservative in his food choices, cleared his plate and didn’t even realise it was a vegan meal. The full recipe can be found on my website.

I had an invitation to speak at Horbury afternoon section WI last week which was a really good buzz. It was of course all done via zoom and it was the first speaking engagement I have done for a whole year. The meeting was great fun, I had a brilliant time and I think the ladies did too, so a big thank you to them for having me along.

That is all for this week, hope you have a try with the recipe idea, it is an easy twist on our favourite comfort food, stay safe!