TRY THIS PLANT-BASED SUMMER STEW FROM OUR RESIDENT VEGAN

My husband quite likes the fact that I submit a post to Spud every week because he knows he will get something new on the menu every week. I might not be as creative if I wasn’t sharing my recipes and could easily stay in the repetitive cycle of meals for months. Yesterday, our first grey day in a very long time, I wanted to create a comfort type meal so my first plan of action was to scour my fridge for ideas. For a brief moment, I considered making a “tricken” based shepherds pie but it didn’t excite me much so I came up with this summer stew instead and it was a hit worthy of sharing. This can be made with a variety of your favourite vegetables but this one is made with the ones I happened to have in stock.

“Tricken” Summer Stew with a Cheezy Potato Topping

Topping Ingredients

5 or 6 medium new potatoes

¼ cup avocado oil

3 T. nutritional yeast

¾ tsp of sea salt

Fresh ground pepper to taste

Filling Ingredients

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 lb crimini mushrooms, sliced (or mushrooms of your choice)

3 large carrots, sliced

3 stalks celery (including leaves), sliced

1 lb snap peas, trimmed and strings removed

1 lb of Beyond Meat Chicken-less strips

1 ½ cups of vegetable broth

¼ cup of arrowroot flour (or cornstarch)

Salt and pepper to taste

3 T avocado oil

Instructions

Clean and scrub potatoes removing any bad spots, leaving skin on. Boil whole for 20 minutes (just to precook them a little, not fully) and then remove from heat and drain. Set aside to cool while you cook the filling. In a small bowl or cup mix the salt and nutritional yeast with the avocado oil and set aside.

Mix arrowroot flour with cold vegetable broth until flour is fully dissolved. Add onions, garlic, celery, mushroom and carrots to oil in heavy pot and sauté for 5 minutes over medium heat until mushrooms soften and onion clarifies. Add snap peas, chicken-less strips and broth/flour mixture to pot and cook until broth thickens. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper to your taste if needed. Pour mixture into shallow casserole dish.

Slice potatoes thinly and place them, slightly overlapped over top of “Tricken” mixture until it is fully covered. Brush the nutritional yeast/avocado oil mixture evenly over the potatoes. Bake at 375F for 45 minutes, raising heat to 400F for the last 10 minutes to brown the potatoes and make topping crispy. Enjoy!