Doctors these days insist that we eat the rainbow. Great news, I’ve got the perfect recipe for you!

This is a different take on shepherd pie. Not quite the rainbow, but close! You will love the purple, orange green and white colors, dark and light green. You will marvel at the crunchiness of the vegetables, and at the delectable layer of mashed cauliflower and potatoes. I made this dish dairy free by replacing butter with extra virgin olive oil, and make the grated cheese only optional. Make it with ground beef or a 50 /50 mix of beef and venison, add plenty of pepper, you will enjoy it, guaranteed. Make it with the Vitaliseur steam cooker and you will speed the process, boost taste intensity and nutrient density of your meal considerably.

A Different Kind of Shepherd Pie

I love shepherd pie, and I love it so much I’d love to eat it in more ways than one! My husband and I have a good routine when it comes to our shepherd pie. However when my baby was born, a friend of mine brought me a shepherd pie made in a very different way, and it was amazing ! This friend also used the same steam cooker to make it, and I was dreaming of making it again !

I finally did, and I must say; it tastes even better the second time around.

This dish is fairly simple, no specialty ingredients needed, I am fairly certain you have everything you need in your kitchen to make it – except perhaps the famous Vitaliseur steam cooker! On this topic, you should probably read a bit more about why I love it so much, for my health and for its efficiency; but mostly for the taste of the foods I make with it.

Just as I was making this dish though, I heard a friend make a statement I couldn’t hep but address in this post.

Do I need speciality Ingredients to Cook Healthy?

Not long ago a heard a friend tell me she felt she always needed specialty ingredients and a trip to the store to cook healthy. And that got me thinking. WHY? May be because my habit of cooking healthy is so deeply engrained in me, I heartily disagree! So what’s my answer? The short answer is NO, the long answer, of course is “It Depends”.

What does healthy Mean To You?

I’m not sure what other people’s definition of “healthy” means. In fact, we were all raised in different health culture through our family, our country’s health culture and what we learned at school and experience of health in our lifetime. So what does “healthy” means to me?

Real, whole foods: I mean to say produce, unprocessed meat and fish, seeds grains and beans, produce. From the moment a food is packaged, the wholeness decreases, the number of additives increases.

Clean: devoid, if possible, of pesticides and preservatives meant to make the food look good and be shelf stable. That could get you into a lot of studying to make sure you spare yourself many chemical preservatives – starting with making sure you understand what additives refer to!

Nutrient dense : Strong, bold natural colors of raw vegetables, consistency – crunchy – natural scent and flavor without needing tons of dressing and condiments.

Eat Mostly raw,

I try to eat mostly raw as in cooked for a short time if even cooked at all, so as to preserve nutrient density.

Pasteurization involves foods cooking through high temperature process. This means your pasteurized foods loose a lot of their nutrient density. Killing bacteria means killing good AND bad bacteria. Meanwhile, our digestive systems need bacteria to digest and take up nutrients.

Besides, foods that are “fortified” with nutrients never quite rematch the complex interactions of nutrients and other compounds of foods found in nature. Chemical nutrients are never absorbed as well as the nutrients in foods you would pick in a field or on a tree. Believing that science can pretend matching or even surpass the genius complexity of nature is, to me, a serious mistake. In short, you can trust supplements, but prioritize nutrient density from your food first.

Cooking is processing

I don’t oppose “processed” foods in principle. However, there are different degrees of processing.

Cutting and cooking are processing techniques ! I usually try to avoid buying foods processed with added ingredients such as oils ( usually poor quality) , preservatives – especially chemical – or prepared meals.

Layers of processing in prepared meals

Prepared meals are usually low budget to keep pricing affordable to the consumer. Manufacturers understandably sacrifice healthy ingredients for lower prices and use additives to make sure the prepared meal tastes good. They add preservatives to make the meal more shelf stable, so they are more likely to be purchased and not wasted. It also helps keep the price low.

It is a “fair” process, it saves you time, and you don’t need to eat out. But don’t be fooled into thinking you cannot make the same quality – or much better quality – meal for cheaper, without spending much time in the kitchen! It takes some strategy in buying some foods in the bulk amounts that fits your consumption speed! In the end, you are what you eat: eating prepared meals and overly processed foods will damage your health over the long run.

Lowest Quality Oils in Prepared Meals

Oils are a case in point: quality oils are expensive. By purchasing them yourself, you control how much goes into your food and how the processing goes so as not to damage these oils and what they bring you. You control the nutrient density going into your body.

Conversely , manufacturers use lowest quality oil – most of which GMO ( i.e. sprayed heavily with pesticides). These oils are extracted chemically ( do you want to eat that?), then used at high temperature, which is damaging and inflammatory. The number of layers of processing in making store-bought prepared meals just by looking at the oils they contain makes me dizzy! I very much prefer avoiding these like the plague and find meals to make that are easy, quick and do not require relying on prepared meals.

What Kind of Healthy Foods Do You Like?

My tips to avoid feeling like you need “specialty ingredients” to make healthy meals every day:

Find the common thread: What do these healthy recipes that inspire you have in common?

If you go to the same type of healthy recipe, identify the common ingredients and keep them in your pantry! Herbs or spice keep up to a few years, especially good quality ones. Quality oils, are best in the bottle size you are probably going to consume over two years: good quality oils degrade after 2 years for sure. Based on that, I buy one gallon of cold pressed organic sesame oil I will consume over two years. However the first time, I purchased a one quart bottle to see how much I would use it.

Are the specialty ingredients replaceable?

Many times, specialty ingredients are fairly easy to replace. Many times recipes have specialty items meant for people with food restrictions to replace something else. For example, coconut aminos or Tamari are often meant to replace soy sauce for people sensitive to soy, GMOs, and gluten ( Tamari is soy sauce without gluten) . A bit of research online (“How do I replace … with?”) and you’ll probably find a replacement you may have in your pantry already!

How often will I make this meal?

Sometimes we make a meal only one time because it is hard to make. However, it is much easier the second time around! After that, ask yourself how often you will make it depending on how much your family likes it and the time you have to make it. If this recipe does have specialty ingredients and you like that meal enough, purchasing specialty ingredients may be worth the time and budget!

Are these healthy recipes you like LONG to make?

Try to find a simplified version that is made faster. Here you can use me as help, steam cooking really speeds up many long recipes, and improves their health points!

Is it a special dressing I need special ingredients for ?

Look it up, you may be able to find a DIY equivalent dressing recipe online. By keeping the raw ingredients in your pantry, you may not have to buy the dressing ever! It’s fairly easy to keep a few different bottles of oil and vinegar, to keep lemons in the fruit basket, and have some mustard to make your own dressing! It costs less and its fun to find new ways to dress a salad or a dish! And bonus: it’s healthier because you won’t add the bad additives and use better quality ingredients to make it – I promise !

How Long Are You Ready To Cook To Be Healthy?

Cooking longer does not make anything healthier. My health criteria for any ingredient?

• How LITTLE it was processed? Raw (produce), cold pressed (oils), fresh (produce, meat, fish), frozen, dry ( beans, grains), unmixed ingredients are my go-to. They easily keep in the pantry for a long, long time.
• How FRESH it is ( that includes how far it had to travel, but I am aware not everyone can go to their neighbor farmers. Fresh vegetables even conventionally grown are “fresh” in most people’s book!
• A salad is often a good way to eat healthy that does not take much time to prep !

Over time ,you can build a pantry with dry ingredients you regularly use and are healthy. For example, you can buy dry beans and lentils instead of cans. Or bulk grains instead of pound bags that are much more expensive…

food for thought: What Other Obstacles Keep You From Healthy Eating?

This is a question every one can ask himself. We all are on a health journey and always can try to be a bit better, a bit at a time. This does impact us over the long run. A health journey can also impact our loved ones in a very positive way and become a family/ friendship affair. Don’t underestimate how group/ family cooking can help!

Meanwhile, if this dish inspired you, you should get on to the recipe. See how ONE SIMPLE COOKER can cook most of your dinner.

Shepherd pie, mostly steamed

Now get on the shepherd pie train ! This dish is fun to make, so colorful ! If you have a few helpers like I do, get them to help with cutting vegetables. It may not look as good with their cutting, but they are more likely to eat if they participate.

Barely Steamed vegetables

First, you steam all vegetables just a bit, to “blanch” it, in short, clean them but not fully cook them. If you fully cook them, they will become mushy instead of crunchy, and won’t taste as good in the dish. Believe me, it makes a huge difference! If took me a while to get it right.

You can Steam Beef!

All ingredients in this dish are steamed, and you will be surprise that even ground meat is steamed ! Why? Because when I mix ground meat in a meal, especially in layers, I prefer having the full array of tastes: it doesn’t need to grill. Therefore, pre steaming before cooking in the oven is ideal. Besides, the steam bath of the steam cooker will get rid of some of the fat, which in the case of most animal raised in big farms and fed inflammatory foods, is also inflammatory.

Steamed Mashed Potatoes

You will also learn how to mash potatoes and cauliflower very quickly. You don’t even need to boil potatoes for a long time and mash with a hand masher ! Steam 5 minutes each vegetables and throw them in the food processor with a bit of olive oil! Win Win!

Just a side note: mashed potatoes in France have a very different consistency compared to the American version, which is very thick. This mashed vegetables mix is somewhere in between.

I leave you to it! Enjoy!

Bon appétit