Vegan Lancashire Hotpot

This is a wonderful winter recipe which can be adapted to use whatever vegetables you have in store. It is so easy to prepare and cook in one pot so saves on washing up which is always a good thing. It fills the room with warming comforting smells and is perfect after a long winters walk or cruise. 

We cook ours all day on the stove top oven but you could cover it in a lidded casserole dish and cook it all day on top on fire just browning it under the grill to crisp up the potatoes. cooking something with free heat from the fire always makes it taste better.

Ingredients:
Vegetable oil

1 onion chopped

1-2 cups mixed veg cut into chunks eg carrots, celery, turnip, swede and leeks. Adapt to suit your own taste.

1 cup mushrooms broken into 2 cm chunks

1/3 cup red lentils

1 dessertspoon margarine

1 dessertspoon cornflour
1/2 cup hot water or veg stock

1 teaspoon Henderson’s relish or Worcestershire sauce

2 chopped fresh tomatoes
1 bay leaf
I dessertspoon nutritional yeast (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

3-4 potatoes, washed and sliced.

method:
Heat the oil in an ovenproof casserole and fry the onion until just beginning to brown.

Add the mixed vegetables, lentils and margarine and cook for a 5 mins stirring to prevent them from sticking.

Add the mushroom pieces and cook for a further 2 mins.

Stir in the cornflour and stock or water and mix thoroughly to coat all the vegetables.

Add the tomatoes, bay leaf, salt, pepper, Henderson’s relish and nutritional yeast and simmer for 5 mins until the sauce is thick.

Cover with sliced potatoes and a few drops of margarine and cook in a low oven for 1 and 1/2 hours until the veg are tender and the potatoes cooked, or you could cook on your stove as suggested above.

Delicious served with a green vegetable