Sweet potato and veggie shepherds pie

I feel like I should come up with more imaginative names for these things rather than the ridiculously descriptive and often long things they end up with. But at least you know what you're getting in the recipe, I suppose. Also just noticed that this has really ended up being all about the food... and on that note another random recipe!

I love shepherds pie, it's good simple comfort food. Not such a big fan of the fat content in traditional shepherds pie and so I decided to change it up a bit. This is one of my vegetarian meals that can be easily modified to add some meat and therefore satisfy carnivorous other halves. Vegemite/ Marmite may seem like a weird addition to a mince mix but it's a good way of adding the extra taste as a vegetarian friendly alternative to beef stock.

Sweet potato and veggie shepherds pie. 
Makes 3 mini casserole dishes/ 4 ramekins

Ingredients

1. 1/2 cauliflower
2. 1 large carrot
3. 1 sweet potato
4. 50 gm cottage cheese
5. Paprika
6. Sea Salt
7. 1x zucchini 
8. 4x mushroom 
9. 1x onion
10. 150gm soy mince
11. 1tbsp vegemite/ marmite
12. 1 tbsp tomato salsa
13. 1/2 tsp dried basil 

Method

1. Chop cauliflower, carrot and sweet potato into small cubes and boil until mashable (about half an hour)
2. Mash with seasonings and cottage cheese. Put to one side
3. Preheat oven to 200c
4. Grate zucchini, finely chop mushrooms and onion. In a bowl mix chopped veggies, soy mince, vegemite, salsa and basil. 
5. Divide the soy mince mix between mini casserole dishes/ ramekins and cover with sweet potato mash. 
6. Bake in oven for approx. 30 mins or until cooked through.

If you want to go for the meat lovers option - Slice two uncooked sausages open and add the sausage meat to the soy mince mix. This does mean you have more meat mix so either spread the sweet potato mash more thinly or add an extra carrot.

Weight watchers points per mini casserole dish:
For veggie option - 3 points
For meat lovers - 5 points