A Different Engine 2 Shepherd's Pie Recipe (edited from original post of 6/9/2013)

This one is from Natala, one of the Engine 2 coaches:

Shepherds Pie: The quick way.
   
about 5-6 white potatoes.
2 cups cooked lentils
1 package of frozen peas and carrots
1 package sliced mushrooms
1/2 package of frozen kale
Poultry seasoning
paprika
no sodium added tomato sauce or Pomi tomatoes (pureed)
nutritional yeast
unsweetened non-dairy milk

Pre-heat oven to 400

Peel (optional) and cut the potatoes; cook in boiling water for around 20 minutes, until soft.
While the potatoes are cooking:
Layer in a baking dish:
first layer: a thin layer of tomato sauce to cover the bottom
second layer: lentils
third layer: mushrooms
4th layer: kale
5th layer: peas and carrots

When your potatoes are finished, drain and mash them, adding a bit of milk and nutritional yeast, up to 1/2 cup, and some poultry seasoning.

Spread the mashed potatoes on top of the peas and carrots layer. Sprinkle paprika over the potatoes.

Cover the casserole and bake for about 30 minutes, until completely heated.

Before cooking

What I did differently:
Not much. I forgot the poultry seasoning in the potatoes so sprinkled it over the peas and carrots. It worked out better this way because otherwise they would have turned the potatoes green. I also forgot the paprika. It was in the list of ingredients then never mentioned again in the original directions.

It's too hot to light the oven so it was cooked in the microwave. Since it's to be covered, anyway, that shouldn't matter. I used 75% power for 15 minutes and it was very hot to touch. I should have used a thermometer, instead.

Tastes:
Well, not so good. The bag of kale had more stems than leaves and was very chewy, and it didn't taste as good as usual, either. I had to use a lot of salt on mine and my husband drowned his in sriracha sauce.

after cooking

I didn't cook it long enough and the mushrooms were still solid and crunchy, and some were still room temperature. Everything else was very hot, though, which is weird.

If I use this recipe again in the future, I'm frying up the mushrooms with onions first, and instead of kale I'll definitely use spinach, instead. And instead of, or along with, nutritional yeast, the potatoes will also get a hefty dose of garlic.

We both decided this wasn't a very good meal, and soon after eating my husband went foraging for something else to eat. There are plenty of leftovers that I now have to figure out how to doctor up to make more appetizing. Perhaps a batch of McDougall-approved gravy?