A Recipe: Shepherd's Pie

In honor of St. Patty's Day, I thought I'd post (or re-post) this Shepherd's Pie recipe from my Meals For Real blog (have you joined yet?).  I wouldn't necessarily call it 100% authentic but it sure is tasty.  You could always substitute the ground beef for lamb or any other variety of meat (or non-meat) that you choose.

Also, please pray that there is no rain tomorrow.  If you remember, GracieAnn (see here) is obsessed with the St. Patty's Day Parade.  She has asked me everyday for the past year "when is the parade again?".  When I finally told her that it was THIS Saturday, you can imagine her excitement.  Now . . . they are calling for rain-BOO!

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:

Preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

I peeled and cut up about 10 potatoes and put them on to boil

I cut a green pepper into long slices.

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

 I browned about 1.25lbs of lean ground beef.

Then threw in the garlic, onion and green pepper.

I added 1 small can of tomato sauce.

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

I added 7 or 8 good shakes of worcestershire.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Here's what you'll end up with:

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