Shepherd's Pie

I ran across a recipe last week for a Shepherd's Pie on a blog called Dawn's Daily Life. It might be hard to believe but I have never had shepherd's pie before. With St. Patrick's Day fastly approaching, I thought I might as well give it a try.

Pay careful attention because I forgot to take a picture of the potatoes.

Shepherd’s Pie Recipe from Dawn’s Daily Life
9 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 (6 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 (15 ounce) can green beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can corn, drained
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons milk

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the potatoes in a large pot, cover with water, and cook over high heat. Boil for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, brown ground beef in a large skillet over medium-high heat; drain fat. Add tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce to taste, salt, pepper, green beans and corn. In a separate bowl, mix flour with the 3 tablespoons water and stir into beef mixture. Pour this mixture into a casserole dish. Stir all together well. Drain the potatoes, mash and spread over the beef mixture. Place 2 to 3 vent holes through the mashed potatoes.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Brush the milk over the potatoes for the last 5 minutes of baking.

Modifications:

-I added 2 cloves of garlic, 1 onion and 1 green pepper to this recipe.

Here's what I started with:



Here's how I did it:

#1 Preheated the oven to 350 degrees.


#2 I peeled and cut up about 10 potatoes and put them on to boil
#3 I cut a green pepper into long slices.



#4 I then cut up an onion and coarsley chopped 2 garlic cloves.





#5 I browned about 1.25lbs of lean ground beef.



#6 Then threw in the garlic, onion and green pepper.

#7 I added 1 small can of tomato sauce.

#8 Then I drained a can of corn and a can of green beans and added it to the mixture.

#9 I added 7 or 8 good shakes of worcestershire.

#10 While that was cooking, I measured out 2T of all-purpose flour and 3T of water. I mixed it together and then mixed it into the pan.

#11 I then greased a 9x13 baking dish and put the mixture in it.

#12 I drained the potatoes and then added a tad of butter so that I could mash them up into chunks.

#13 Once they were mashed up, I scooped the potatoes over the meat mixture and poked 4 holes in it.

#14 Popped it into the oven for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

#15 With a few minutes left to go, I measured out 3T of milk and started to brush it on the potatoes. That was too much of a pain so I just drizzled it all over the top.

The Finished Product:

Review:

This recipe was SOOOO good! As I said earlier, I had never had shepherd's pie before. I knew that it sounded like I would like it because of the ingredients so I wasn't really worried about myself but sometimes Scott and Kanin have this "I don't want to mix my food" issue so I wasn't sure that they would want the potatoes on top. I almost just made the mashed potatoes on the side and served it that way but I really wanted to try to stay as close to the recipe as possible. I'm glad I did!

I added the garlic, onion and green peppers and it did add a lot of flavor. In hindsight, though, I think I should have left out the green peppers. The texture was pretty close to that of the green beans and while it wasn't bad, it just didn't add a lot to it.

If you aren't going to be all critical about the authenticity of what you put in the dish, I think you could really add anything you wanted--mushrooms, ground turkey, beans, etc.

I'd say to definitely give this recipe a try. It was easy and tasty!

Hope you enjoy!

April