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.