Well Finally

For years (yes years) now I've toyed with the idea of making a shepherd's pie but I was always a bit put off by the fact that it looked like it could get time consuming and involve cooking things just to combine them with other things and cook them again (which I get bored with). However, with my newly inspired cooking craze (thanks to all the wonderful cooking blogs I have discovered that keep me from getting too bored) I decided to try it. That and I had nothing else to cook The Grump and he likes food that he can mash up and mix together anyway.

I admit, I googled for a recipe and looked at a couple of the images, got the general idea, and then just gave up on recipes. This is not at all like me but I've gotten sick of the wisecracks I get from The Grump (a natural, no recipe, everything always comes out great, cook) when I adhere strictly to recipes so I thought "I'll show you!" and decided to wing it. Here's what I came up with (while The Grump looked on in what I flatter myself was sheer amazement):

Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients:

1/2 pound ground beef
4 large red potatoes
1/2 can crushed tomatoes
1/2 package frozen vegetables
1/2 onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic chopped
splash of Worcestershire Sauce
1 cup shredded cheese
butter
olive oil
heavy whipping cream

Directions:

Peel the potatoes and chop them coarsely. Cover them with water, add a dash of salt, and bring to a boil. Continue boiling for about 10 minutes while you prepare everything else. When the potatoes are fork tender, drain them and mash them up. I like to add a bit of heavy cream, butter, and season salt too.

In a separate pan brown the ground beef until no red remains. As you are doing that, chop up the onion and garlic and add to a skillet with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Heat until onions are translucent then add the (drained) ground beef. Stir in the tomato sauce and frozen vegetables and cook until vegetables are no longer frozen (about 5-7 minutes). Add Worcestershire sauce and cook another 3-4 minutes. Transfer ground beef mixture to a greased 8x8 inch baking dish and smooth the top.

By now, the potatoes should be about done so distribute them evenly across the top of the meat mixture and smooth until all of the meat is covered. I topped this with about a cup of shredded cheese.

Now pop it into a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes and then enjoy! This makes about 4 servings.

Newness

I love that you can change a few key appearance characteristics of your blog and - viola! - you have a whole new site! Makes me all motivated again. We'll see how long that lasts - you'll notice the new tag line about low expectations. I just plain refuse to be bogged down by a blog that no one reads! That makes sense right?

So, since I am physically (and mentally?) incapable of concentrating on one hobby for longer than a month the new one is - wait for it - cooking!

"How anticlimactic!" you might say.

But seriously, have you seen some of the cooking blogs out there? I am totally addicted. Especially to The Pioneer Woman. I just know that despite the fact that over 30,000 readers routinely enter her prize contests I will one day be the lucky winner of some wonderful bit of kitchen gadget goodness. I just have to keep telling myself that.

Anyway, the boyfriend unit is making no complaints - when he tells me he hasn't had a steak like that since his grandmother's I know I must have done something right because she was one hell of a cook. We'll see how the waistline holds up - I might actually have to enter that 5k I've been threatening to run.

Until next time......... oh and............ please feed my fish. It's addictive too.

Two Firsts

For the first time in probably 4 years or so I am going on a vacation and for the first time in (sadly) more than I year, I am posting to this blog. What better way to start the blogging habit again that by blogging about our vacation?

So, we're on our way to New Mexico for some camping and mountain biking action and true to form, we started out about 2 hours late so I am writing in the car, it's dark, and we still have about 2 hours to go. Props to us for being so on the ball. But it's been an interesting trip so far. First, we stopped for some emergency food at the Dairy Queen in Lampassas and since I love Chris I gave in to his need to eat inside at fast food restaurants rather than just zipping through the drive through like any sane person would. In addition to about 500 flies, the people were, well, interesting. There was a gay couple wearing matching white bandanas that made me wonder if they had somehow managed to find a gang to join that far out of the big city, two old men who sat down and then 15 minutes later asked us what town they were in, and the troupe of mentally challenged kids ushered in by a little old lady who I swear wanted to steal our french fries. Even Chris had to see my point about the usefulness of the drive through after that experience.

Other than that things were pretty uneventful. We've seen some beautiful scenery - I love the bluffs in northwest Texas - and we stopped to waste time for a bit in Sweetwater with Chris' family. I love it - no time constraints and no worries. Now if only the tent could pitch itself in the dark.