Recipe Fridays: Shepherd’s Pie (sort of)

Okay, this recipe is a little bit “cheating” – you can see right there the box of instant mashed potatoes – but let’s face it.  This is one time where I don’t mind taking a shortcut, because I’ve been doing it this way for years, and really, for this style recipe, the almost creepy smoothness of boxed mashed potatoes is perfect, whereas to achieve that consistency by hand is near-impossible, or necessitates the use of a food processor or mixer (neither of which I currenly own)… and that just means more dishes to clean.  Come on.  I’m aiming for mostly quick & easy here!

I actually prepared most of this one night and finished it up the second night, so I could have a good meal while watching Thursday Night Must See TV… you could probably serve this with a salad to lighten you up, but I’m crazy like that.  Plus I discovered I have no dressing in my fridge (I don’t know how that happened), and I’m bored of using the oil from my empty jars of marinated artichoke hearts on Romaine lettuce. 

Also, if you’re a really, REALLY long time reader, you might recognize that I’ve posted this recipe before.  In fact, it’s the first recipe I ever posted on Feisty Foodie, for serious.  But the recipe has no pictures and erroneously tells you that ONE CUP of soy sauce should be used – gag – and I’ve come so far… I figured I’d re-do the old recipe with pictures 🙂  (I may just be doing that as a trend for now… we’ll see how long it lasts.)

So, back to the basics for me!

1 packet of mashed potatoes from the box (plus the ingredients it asks you, to follow their instructions) (OR, super creamy smooth liquidy even mashed potatoes)
1/2 lb to 1 lb. of ground beef – I bought ground chuck because it was a LOT cheaper
couple cloves of garlic, minced (I like garlic, so I use a lot)
half an onion, diced (I had half a red onion to use up, so I used that, but a yellow onion is perfectly fine as well)
1-3 tablespoons of soy sauce
frozen peas and carrots, or assorted frozen veggies you like (I wanted to use the package I have with lima beans in it, but didn’t think BF would eat that)

I grew up cooking ground beef with no added oils; there is a ton of fat in ground beef, especially ground chuck.  I refuse to start a pan of ground beef with oil, and don’t understand why anyone does – chefs on TV do it, as do many food bloggers to whom I subscribe.  In the case of the above, yes, I wanted to start the pan with garlic and onions first… so I broke off a little bit of ground beef and put it in the bottom of the pan first, letting some fat come out before piling the garlic & onions on top.  When it looked a little dry… I added a splash of soy sauce, because I’m crazy like that.

Cook garlic & onions until slightly softened. 

Add ground beef, stirring constantly to prevent clumping up.  You don’t want meatballs here or big clumps of meat… just evenly small-ish chunks.  Splash a little more soy sauce here.  Flavor that beef!  (In the past, I’ve occasionally added Italian seasoning and ground black pepper; sometimes I don’t.  It always tastes good.)

Add some frozen veggies, eyeball the amount, I didn’t use that entire bag by a long shot. 

Make a cornstarch slurry – a teaspoon or so of cornstarch, cold water, mix with your fingers until it looks like skim milk and all cornstarch is incorporated.

Pour the slurry over the entire meat mixture, then stir to incorporate.  Bring to a boil/bubble, the sauce will thicken into a delicious gravy.  You want to taste it at this point and see if it’s salty enough; you probably want it somewhat salty to still stand up against the mashed potatoes…

At this point, if you wanted, you could serve this with big bowls of fluffy white rice, and you’d still be eating extremely well.  But you can also…

Pour it in the bottom of a casserole dish, or an aluminum pan.  I used to exclusively use aluminum pans, but the other day I was rummaging around in my cabinets and realized I have this set of pretty casserole dishes I never use.  So, why not?  I made this slightly smaller, to suit my 2-person dinner, but you can make this bigger for a whole aluminum pan too! 

This is where I called it a night.  I left it to cool, lid open, and put the whole thing in the fridge before I went to sleep so I could finish it the next night really fast.  Either way…

Make the mashed potatoes – I made mine a little extra creamy, adding a couple of splashes of half & half that I had in the fridge, in addition to what the instructions required.  It came out super liquidy, so it was easy to pour right on top of the meat mixture.  I sprinkled paprika on top for some color.

I baked it at 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes, until the top seemed like it’d solidified a bit from its previous soupy state…

Ideally, you should be able to cut into it and serve pieces, but from the odd shape of my casserole dish, I did lose a little meat here and there, as you can see. 

Yummmmmm!!!  Perfect comfort food on a cold wintry night, yes?  A one plate meal, natch… less dishes to wash later 🙂

After you’ve finished, if there are any leftovers, it’s much easier to slice when it’s been refrigerated, to reheat on its own plate or… to pack for lunch.  The first time, I did it right side up, so it just looks like a pile of mashed potatoes.  The second time, not so much.  But always delicious, no matter how you slice it (har har corny sorry!)

HAPPY FRIDAY and HAPPY EATING TO ALL!!!