I knew I had the makings of a shephards pie (except the lamb) but couldn’t find an exact recipe to match what I had available, so I ended up taking ideas from two separate recipes. One was from Didi Emmon’s Vegetable Planet, the other from Allrecipes.com.

For the veggie base, use 2 tbs olive oil to saute:

• 1 white onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 T. curry powder (I used something from Penzy’s called Maharajah
• 1/2 t. fresh ground cumin

The curry will brown a bit on the bottom of the pan which is ok, but don’t let it blacken. When the onion has softened, add:

• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• 3 medium zucchini, chopped
• 1 cup chicken broth
• salt & pepper

The curry acted as a bit of a thickener, so I added more chicken broth occasionally to keep it somewhat stewish. This cooked for about 20 minutes. Then I added about 2/3 of a cup of cooked coarse bulgar. I think the idea here is that the bulgar cooks a bit more during baking and help absorb some of the additional liquid from the zucchini. At least that was my intention; it seemed to do the trick.

For the topping I mixed

• 4 smallish russet potatoes, peeled, boiled and mashed
• 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt
• 2 tbls olive oil
• salt & pepper
• 1 cup frozen peas

The veggies went into a cassarole/pie thing. Spread the potato mixture over that, then I grated a couple of tablespoons of romano on top. Baked at 400 for 15 minutes, then switched to the broiler for 5 more mintues to get the top nice and brown.

For a last-minute throw-together meal, we were both surprised by how good this turned out. Which is why I figured I’d better make a note of how I did it.