A cottage pie rich in fibre

HERE’S another fibre-rich meal, easily to put together, and packed with essential vitamins and nutrients.

This cottage pie easily serves four, just refrigerate any leftovers and they will be perfect to reheat the next day.

Ingredients:

1kg best minced beef 2tbsp olive oil 4 sticks of celery, chopped 200g carrots, chopped 1 large onion, chopped 1 garlic clove, chopped 100g kale, chopped 2 beef stock cubes 2tbsp wholemeal/plain flour 1 400g tin chopped tomatoes 2kg potatoes suitable for mashing 1 small cauliflower, chopped 150g spinach, chopped 50g butter 200ml milk 100g grated cheese (ie Cheddar/ mozzarella/parmesan)

Method:

Peel and chop the potatoes and put on to boil.

Meanwhile in a very large pan, sauté the celery, carrots, onion, kale and garlic in the olive oil for five minutes, then add the minced beef to brown.

Next add the spinach and sweat it down.

Crumble in the stock cubes and flour and when thoroughly mixed add some of the potato water, spoon by spoon, to loosen the mixture.

Finally stir in the tomatoes and season to your taste, then add the mixture to a casserole dish.

When the potatoes are almost soft add the cauliflower, season and continue cooking until soft.

Drain the water (reserving for future soup-making veg stock if you wish), mash the potatoes and cauliflower with the butter and milk.

Top the mince mixture with the potatoes and cook in a moderate oven.

After 20 minutes, top the pie with grated cheese and return to the oven to melt the cheese for a further five minutes before serving with veg or salad.

Show off and enjoy.

Chef’s note:

THIS tasty, high fibre, iron rich meal is brimming with minerals and vitamins A, B, C, and K.

Lesley and her husband, Roberto, own Roberto’s Italian on Ocean Plaza – for more of Lesley’s recipes, go to Twitter @LYatesNutrition