by Rev. Chef Beth Love
This classic comfort food dish has been made-over with wholesome, savory ingredients like mushrooms, kidney beans, chard, and roasted garlic. You will not miss the meat, cream, and butter, and your heart will thank you!
Yield:
About 6–10 servings
Ingredients:
- cloves from 1 head garlic, skins on, root ends trimmed off
- 2½ pounds thin-skinned potatoes, trimmed and cut in quarters
- ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons raw cashews
- ½–1 pound mushrooms, shredded, torn or sliced (see Notes)
- 1 bunch chard, leaves stripped from stems, stems cut into half-inch slices and greens coarsely chopped
- 1 large leek, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated
- 4 cups cooked kidney beans
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, optional
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper, or more to taste, optional
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 450º F.
- Roast Garlic: Place garlic cloves in a small baking pan with a cover. Or, if you don’t have a pan with cover, use parchment paper over the garlic and foil over that. (The parchment paper will keep aluminum from leaching into the food.) Roast in oven until the cloves are soft and starting to brown, about 20 minutes.
- While garlic is roasting, steam potatoes on a steaming rack over boiling water. You can peel the potatoes if you like, or leave the skins on for a more rustic approach. Monitor the potatoes and turn the burner off when they are very soft.
- When garlic is done, remove from oven and set aside.Turn oven temperature down to 425º F.
- Prepare cashew cream: Place cashews in a blender with ½ cup water. Blend until smooth. If your blender doesn’t handle small quantities well, double the batch and save the extra cashew cream for another use.
- Place a heavy-bottomed pan on the stove and turn it on fairly high. Add the chard stems and white parts of the leeks, and cook, stirring intermittently, until the veggies are about half cooked. Add a little vegetable stock or water to keep from sticking if needed.
- Add the mushrooms and continue cooking and stirring for a few more minutes.
- Skin roasted garlic and mash.
- Add garlic, lima beans, green parts of leeks, and nutritional yeast to leeks and chard stems and mix in. Bring to a simmer.
- Remove from heat and mix in chopped chard leaves.
- Transfer bean veggie mixture to a deep baking pan and spread in a fairly even layer.
- Prepare mashers: Mash the potatoes. Add the cashew cream and a little of the steaming water and mix. Adjust the moisture by adding additional steaming water to your satisfaction.
- Assembly: Spread the potatoes in a fairly even layer over the bean veggie mixture, covering thoroughly all the way out to the edges of your pan. Decorate if you like.
- Place pan, uncovered, in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, then put under a broiler and continue cooking until it is browned to your liking. Some broilers are very hot, so you may only need to broil it for 1–3 minutes. Others will take longer.
- Serve while warm.
Notes, Substitutions, and Variations:
- If you have a baking pan that can also be used on the stovetop, use that to prepare the filling, then add the mashed potatoes on top to save washing a second pot or pan.
- Substitute different veggies for the leeks and chard stems in the filling. For instance try celery, zucchini, or Brussels sprouts.
- Use a different green, such as kale, mustard, or collards.
- Use one or more alternative roots in the mashers. For example try Hanna sweet potatoes, rutabagas, and/or parsnips, or a mixture of roots.
- Substitute lentils, lima beans, black beans, or black-eyed peas for the kidney beans.
- Mushroom Suggestions:
• Shiitake, crimini, or button: slice
• Oyster, maitake, or similar branching mushrooms: tear into pieces
• King trumpet or similar thick-stemmed mushrooms: slice the caps, shred the thick stems vertically using a fork