Oh, baby.

My friends had a baby over the weekend. In order to help, I thought I'd leave a little bag of good eats for them. I made a Shepard's Pie on the fly that turned out a whole lot better than I thought it would. Goes something like this:

Sautee a large sweet onion in a few Ts of evoo for about 15 minutes (getting it on its way to caramelizing). Then add a few stalks of celery, a few big carrots, and a medium-ish sweet potato (all diced pretty small) and a few cloves of crushed garlic - sautee another 5 or 10 minutes. Add a couple of cups of nice veggie broth, some thyme, pepper, and rosemary, and let it simmer on medium heat for another half an hour.

In the meantime, boil a big pot of water, toss in diced Yukon gold (or fingerling as I had them on hand) potatoes - maybe 1.5 or 2 pounds worth. Boil until soft. Mash em with a good amount of salt and pepper (and soy milk and non-dairy margarine if you're feeling indulgent, which I was - telling myself it was a gift helped).

While the veggies simmer and the potatoes boil, toss some veggie crumble (like Boca that you can buy in the freezer section) into a pan with a little oil and cook on med-high with about 1/2 cup of marsala until the marsala is all burned off and the crumbles are browned up and a little crispy.

Throw the crumbles down in a layer on the bottom of a glass casserole. Throw the veggie mixture on top (during simmering if it dries up, add water, when you're ready to use it, if it's too wet, add some flour or cornstarch to thicken it up), and finish with your nicely mashed potatoes. Bake at 350 for about a half an hour. Let stand for 10 minutes as to not loose the roof of your mouth. Enjoy!