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This recipe can be made more simply and adapted to suit your needs. Can’t afford celery or sour cream? Omit them. Have some snap peas or some sad-looking broccoli in the fridge? Add it.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
• 1 medium-sized onion, diced
• 2 ribs of celery, diced
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic (at least), minced
• 1 398 millilitre (14 fluid ounce) can of tomato-based baked beans
• large handful of texturized vegetable protein (TVP)
• 1/2 cup of vegetable stock (or 1 teaspoon of soy sauce and 1/2 cup of water)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons herbes de Provence
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1/2 cup frozen corn
• 5 large or 8 medium-sized potatoes
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• splash of milk
• salt and pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Heat oil in a saucepan (or, if you have it, a cast iron Dutch oven— you’ll be able to put the mash on top and throw the whole thing into the oven). Add onion, celery, and carrot, and allow it to cook for about five minutes before adding the garlic.

2. Meanwhile, set a large salted pot of water boiling. Peel the potatoes and chop them into large cubes. Drop the potatoes into the boiling water and let them cook until fork tender—about 15 minutes.

3. To your onions, celery, carrot, and garlic, add your baked beans, TVP, herbes de Provence, and stock. Once the mixture begins to bubble, turn it down to low and let it hang out until your potatoes are cooked.

4. When your potatoes are ready, mix the frozen corn and peas into the shepherd’s pie base. If you’ve been working in a non-oven-safe saucepan, transfer the mixture to an oven-safe casserole dish.

5. Make the mashed potatoes: drain the water; rice the potatoes or use a masher; add butter, sour cream, splash of milk, and salt and pepper; and mix.

6. Dollop the mashed potatoes onto the shepherd’s pie base. Spread them out with a spoon or spatula so everything is evenly covered. Drag a fork across the mash in rows, to create a series of parallel lines.

7. Place in the preheated oven and cook at 375°F for 30 minutes. The peaks of the mash should get a little browned and crispy, and the shepherd’s pie base should bubble up the sides of the dish.

Excerpted from Hearty: On Cooking, Eating, and Growing Food for Pleasure and Subsistence, by andrea Bennett. ©2024 Published by ECW Press.

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About Hearty:

Thoughtful, wide-ranging essays exploring food as a source of pleasure, practical creativity, and sustenance

Food is the primary way andrea bennett connects with the world. They worked in the restaurant industry for a decade, and though they don’t eat much meat and can’t eat gluten, they take as much pleasure in food as Jeffrey Steingarten, Anthony Bourdain, or Guy Fieri. When they want to show someone they care, they cook them a meal. The essays in Hearty offer a snapshot of the North American cultural relationship to food and eating. Hearty dives deep into specific foods, such as chutney, carrots, and ice cream, but also explores appetite and desire in food media, the art of substitution, seed saving and the triumphs and trials of being a home gardener, how the food system works (and doesn’t), and complex societal narratives around health and pleasure. Combining journalism, cultural commentary, and personal reflection, Hearty follows bennett’s curiosity into kitchens, gardens, fields, and factories, offering a compassionate and compelling perspective on food from seed to table.