— MaryEllen Bunce

Well, of course, I'm assuming that you might be new to the The Forks Over Knives or the plant-based courses and anyway, welcome to the Rouxbe family. So a way to make it more substantial absolutely. So a layer of lentils kind of cooked down to a bit of a puree. Would be a very nice addition you could put it as a layer underneath your potato layer Etc. It would bad both a lot of flavor as well as nutrition substance. And but also it would be very nice flavor because it has that that richness I won't say meatiness of flavor, but that satisfying depth of flavor. Right? So lentils would be a really good way to do that. Another thing that I really like to do that I've done in the past is to sprinkle oven toast to quinoa or something over the top of the mashed potatoes to give it, you know, oftentimes Shepherd's pies are finished in the broiler to give them just a little bit of texture and caramelization on top of the potatoes but toasted quinoa. It's very generously liberally sprinkled over the top almost to cover it like a crumb topping is a really great way to add nutrition. But also this this really wonderful textural contrast because shepherd's pie is really kind of mono textural. So that's a good way to do it. And then of course on bulking up the vegetables. And maybe the solution to this is to find a different pan to cook it in. You know, if you're cooking it in a pie pan. You've only got about an inch of height to work with. Okay, fine find a deeper pan, if you want more substance to it more depth. you know if I make shepherd's pie I'm using something like this, which is about it's three fingers deep or so, and I'm very lucky to have I've written eight cookbooks. And so I have a lot of props in the closet of things that you know for photo shoots Etc and a lot of stuff that people have generously giving me over the years. So I'm I'm aware that I'm just pulling out sort of very aspirational pieces of cookware here. So and I'm aware of how lucky I am to have them but something like this just by virtue of the structure of the vessel is going to allow you more substance sort of more layers to it. So you can do something a little more integrated. Hey, thanks appreciate the question.