Shepardless pie

On Slimming World's green day eating plan, meat is restricted to two portions a day as part of your healthy extra choices. Vegetarian meat substitutes such as Quorn are great as you can make dishes like shepard's pie, spag and chilli without using up one of the precious B choices.

With a few substitutions make a Syn free version of this dish, but I prefer the extra taste so my recipe for shepard's pie does have a few Syns. If you use a non stick pan, you don't need oil. If you do need oil, rather use fry light.

Ingredients:

300g Quorn mince
2 onions, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 stick celery, grated
½ courgette, grated
415g tin baked beans (substitute with 400g peas if you prefer) 
400g potatoes
2 Oxo beef stock cubes, (lamb if you prefer)
2 tsp dried mixed herbs
2 gloves garlic, crushed
2-3 tsp butter or spread
10g Parmesan cheese (2 Syns)
Ground black pepper

Optional
60g grated cheddar cheese (1 healthy extra A choice per serving)

How to:

1. Sweat off the onions, carrot and celery in a large pan.
2. In a frying pan fry off the garlic for 30 seconds then add the Quorn mince. Fry for about five minutes. Add the mince to the veggie pan.
3. Add the beans, courgette, herbs and stock cube to the mince and veg and lower the heat and simmer for 10 - 15 minutes. Add a little water if the gravy is too thick.
4. Peel and boil your potatoes.
5. Mash your potatoes with the pepper, butter and grated cheese if you are using it. Set it aside to cool.
6. Transfer the mince mixture to an oven proof dish and allow to cool a little.
7. Spread the cooled mash over the mince and sprinkle over the Parmesan cheese.
8. Bake in an oven at 180 °C for 20-30 minutes, or until the mash starts to turn golden.

This dish will serve 2 - 3 people, possibly more if you serve it with extra vegetables. It freezes very well and once defrosted just needs 3 - 4 minutes in the microwave to reheat it.

If you leave out the butter and cheese you can make the dish Syn free. Lakeland sells a product called Butter Buds that add a nice buttery flavour to mash for only ½ Syn per sachet.