Steven Stills' Shepherds Pie. Cooking by Comics.

Steven Stills’ Shepherds Pie. Cooking by Comics.

So last week at our weekly bowling league game, my good friend Meg of Decor it Yourself over at Threadbanger was telling me about this “Meatless Monday” initiative she’s gotten into. She wanted to get the word out about eating one meatless meal a week to start people thinking about the options we have in our diet. So this week on Decor it Yourself she is doing a feature about Meatless Monday and asked me if I could write up about some vegetarian recipes to help put out the word and show it’s a super simple thing to get into.

So, I had a thought and wondered how I could tie this into my regular blog of animation, cartoons and the sillyness that I like to blog. Then I remembered that in the second volume of Scott Pilgrim, Steven Stills gives us a recipe for vegan shepherds pie to impress your vegan friends. I figured, hey there’s a nice tie in…so last Saturday night I made a vegetarian version (I couldn’t find a vegan gravy and I like cheese) for Erik and I, following Steven Stills’ direction.

I kept to the comic as close as I could, with a couple minor changes. I used seitan instead of fake meat crumbles as the store didn’t have any, so to bulk it up as seitan is pricey at this store, I added in a tub of mushrooms. This went nicely with the mushroom gravy. Also, instead of adding milk, I bulked the gravy up with red wine. It was super tasty!

I rounded out the meal with a nice simple side dish of roasted brussel sprouts and onions, seasoned with ground red pepper and salt. I popped both dishes in the oven for about 15 minutes.

The result? A really tasty and warming dish that took me about 25 minutes to prep before popping it in the oven. Went great with the wine I used in the gravy! Erik is a meat eater and he loved it too…I think the seitan texture is the best for something like this, it’s chewy and takes well to gravy.

For other nice simple veggie friendly recipes, try Delish Your Dish. It has a great assortment of meals and most use a fake meat product which I find handy because for a long while I never knew how to cook them so they tasted good! My favourite is her Seitan Enchiladas, they are ridiculously tasty.

Also, and this is not specifically vegetarian related but it is healthy related. Check out Jamie’s Food Revolution for a whole new way about thinking about your diet and the food you eat. It’s inspiring!