calherewecome

Last night was our weekly family dinner night. In honor of St Patrick we had Shepherd’s Pie, not corned beef. I despise corned beef. And seeing as it was my turn to cook, we decided to do Shepherd’s pie.
 
 So hear is my recipe. It’s mostly in my head. It is not one of those meals that I need to work from a written recipe. There are many variations of shepherd’s pie to be found on the internet. This is just my variation on the theme.
 
 

 Ingredients
 
 1.5lb ground beef
 2 c Fresh mushrooms
 1 med onion, chopped
 1/2 of a 16oz. bag of frozen peas and carrots. Generic store brand is fine.
 2 bags instant mashed potatoes (I use the “just add water” variation for about 4-6 servings)
 1 c shredded cheddar cheese
 1 jar brown gravy (12 oz. Heinz or equivalent) Some recipes suggest using cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup. My preference is the gravy.
 1/2 tsp ground pepper
 1 tsp salt
 
 Directions
 
 Sauté the onions and mushrooms in a couple teaspoons of olive oil. Then set aside. [Last night we skipped the onions because Theresa is sensitive to onions.]
 
 Brown the ground beef. After the ground beef is cooked, drain the fat. Add the mushrooms, onion, peas and carrots and the gravy. Add the salt and pepper. Simmer for a few minutes. You might not need the whole jar of gravy. Judge for yourself how “soupy” you want it to be.
 
 Pour the ground beef mixture into 7×13 casserole dish.
 
 Prepare the mashed potatoes as directed on the package. Spread the mash potatoes on top of the ground beef.
 
 Sprinkle the cheddar on top.
 
 Bake in 350 oven for about 20 minutes (cheese should be melted and gravy bubbling on the edges.)
 
 Variations: Some folks use either green beans or corn. Not my preference though.
 
 Also, best served with Guinness beer and Irish Whiskey.
 

 Jonathan seemed to like the concoction. Though, I think he mostly liked the mashed potato part, less so for the hamburger.
 
 Joe
 
 – Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

This entry was posted on March 19, 2014 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Food, Ireland, Recipes. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: food, Guiness, Ireland, recipes