Shepherd's Pie

In many households shepherd’s pie is a way to use up leftovers. You have a huge, leftover pot roast sitting in the fridge and the thought of yet another night of pot roast doesn’t sound appealing. There are a few options in the this scenario: freeze your leftovers for a another night, make beef stew or make shepherd’s pie.  Really, you can’t lose.

I had a good amount of mashed potatoes sitting in the freezer that needed to be used. I knew I could turn them into a side dish again or I could use them as the main part of a meal.  I pulled out my Joy of Cooking recipe book found the one shepherd’s pie recipe listed. The Joy of Cooking is great if you are looking for a good standard recipe. The recipes do show their age but with a little imagination they are easy to update.

The recipe called for hash. Yeah, I normally don’t have hash anywhere in my house. So I checked out the hash with vegetables recipe and I knew I could make it my own. I decided that instead of parboiling my veggies that I would just cook them up with the pound of ground beef. The recipe called for two cups of cold cooked meat but ground beef worked just fine. I left out the pimientos and used frozen hash browns in place of a fresh potato only because they were in my freezer. Use any “Cream of _____ soup” because really it doesn’t add much flavor, just creaminess. The recipe needed garlic so I added a teaspoon of minced garlic. I also added in a splash of red wine (not pictured) because the wine was sitting on my counter. Add the red wine! It adds a wonderful depth of flavor that really made the dish impressive. The mashed potatoes I used were leftover Patrician Potatoes and added another vegetable to the mix – cauliflower!

Enjoy!

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

½ cup diced onions

½ cup diced green peppers

½ cup diced celery

1 lb. ground beef

½ cup diced, cooked potatoes

10 oz. cream of _______ soup

1/3 cup tomato puree

1 Tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon Worcestershire

¼ cup red wine

Mashed potatoes

In a large skillet over medium heat mix together onions, green peppers, celery and ground beef and cook until the beef is no longer pink. Stir in the potatoes, soup, tomato puree butter, Worcestershire and wine.  Bring to a simmer.

Heat oven to 350. Spread beef mixture onto the bottom of a casserole dish. Top with mashed potatoes. Bake until the tops of the potatoes are golden, about thirty minutes.

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker