The Family Table: Tot Pie (with or without meat) a winner

My mom is routinely surprised at the amount of food we consume.

What can I say? We all love to eat.

The five in our household pretty much put a hurtin’ on anything I make, and I’m thankful for it. No one is really picky, and collectively, they all love certain dinners I make. A family favorite is a Tot Pie that my mom once made and sent for us. It had meat in it, so Mike and I (the family vegetarians) didn’t get more than a tiny bite. The kids, however, devoured it.

Unwilling to miss out on the deliciousness (and always glad for a casserole that only dirties one dish) I decided I had to adapt it to our vegetarian diet.

I tinkered with it over a couple different makings until I found a version that I genuinely believe most would be unable to tell contains no actual meat. The keys, I found, were a couple of drops of liquid smoke and Worcestershire sauce.

The kids all know it’s not made with “real” meat, but none of them think the casserole tastes any different. I promise you, they’d tell me. They tend to be my harshest critics. Sweet little Josie, now 10, has no qualms letting me know what seasoning she thinks anything is lacking. The boys, while less particular, also offer me any blunt critiques they may have.

This past weekend, a friend of ours came up on Saturday when I was doing my weekend cookery. She helped me make 60 of the freezer breakfast sandwiches I wrote about a few weeks back. Appreciative of the help, I made her a single serving casserole to take home.

She baked hers on Monday, and also found she didn’t feel deprived of beef. She tells me she’s going to give meatless Mondays a go.

Since foregoing meat last August, I’ve tried very hard not to talk too much about vegetarian eating. I don’t think anyone really wants to hear it, but I also think what you decide to eat (or not) is a personal choice. Frankly, there was never a time in my adult life that I thought I’d stop eating meat — and there are still times I take a nibble of it now and again.

That said, with a diet that’s 99 percent meat-free, I’ve never felt better. I eat as much as I’ve always eaten (FYI, that’s a lot — the amount I consume for my weekday lunches has been known to amaze my coworkers), I just eat differently.

I’ve figured out how to adapt most things everyone loves to meatless versions, including my Bolognese sauce, and it really takes no more time to do any of it. The proof that vegetarian versions of pretty much everything are accessible without feeling deprived is in the amount of food that we go through.

A 9x13 pan full of the tot pie was gone the day I made it. Two of the kiddos has thirds.

When I told my mom, she laughed, amazed again at how much our family can eat.

The recipe below includes both the meat and meat-free versions, should anyone be inclined to give a vegetarian dinner a whirl.

Tot Pie

1 ¾ pound lean ground beef OR 2, 13.8 oz. bags of frozen vegetarian beef crumbles

3, 16 oz. bags frozen mixed vegetables

2 small onions, minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons dried thyme

1, 6 oz. can tomato paste

4 tablespoons flour

4 cups beef broth or vegetable broth

2 tablespoons soy sauce (I use mushroom soy, but any will work)

If using vegetarian recipe, 2-3 drops liquid smoke and 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

1 large bag frozen tater tots

If you’re using beef, crumble and brown it in the pan. Remove it and wipe out the grease. For both versions, add some olive oil in the bottom of the pan and sauté the onions over medium heat until they’ve softened. Add in the thyme and garlic and continue stirring until the garlic has also softened. Turn the heat to medium low and add in the flour. Stir until it’s combined with the onions/garlic and then add the tomato paste, stirring it together. Pour the broth and soy into the mix and stir to combine. Turn the heat up and bring to a simmer. The sauce will thicken slightly. Remove from the heat and stir in the cooked meat (or vegetarian crumbles) and the frozen vegetables. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and pour the mixture into a 9x13 pan. If you plan to bake it right away, put it in a preheated 400 oven, topped with a layer of frozen tater tots. It will need to bake for about 40 minutes. If you want to make it later, wait for everything to cool and pop it into the fridge, covered. Don’t put the tots on! Take it out while the oven preheats, top it with the tots and add an additional 5-10 minutes to the baking time to heat it through.

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