Super Simple Recipe- Shepherd's Pie

Today I would like to start throwing out some supereasy recipes that your whole family will love. I will not commit to doing it once a week, cause coming up with a 'Thursday's Thing' every Thursday is already too much stress for me! (Dang it! That's tomorrow!) But if you have any easy family faves, please feel free to share!

This is Chris' favorite right now. Cause it has meat and potatos in it. You can make this as easy, or as complicated as you would like. Depending on what you have in the fridge, and pantry.

Basic Ingredients-
1 lb of ground beef
3-4 potatos
1 cup of frozen mixed veggies
1 can of gravy

This should feed 4-6 normal human beings, but here it only feed Chris, me, and Lily and Topher (and Lily eats about the same amount of food as a regular 4 month old. Not a lot.)

Step 1- Preheat your oven to about 350.
Brown the beef in a pan. Drain the fat. Add as much or as little of the frozen veggies. You can get creative here. If you have mushrooms, celery, green peppers, add those too. We are in a recession folks- veggies are cheaper than meat. This would work especially well if you only had a 1/2 pound of meat. Then add the gravy. I like the Campbells gravy, cause it was pretty flavorful. Then I made it with no-name stuff a few days ago, and it wasn't nearly as flavorful. So taste your meat concoction. You might need to add some salt and pepper here.



Step 2- Make mashed potatos however you normally make mashed potatos. Some milk/cream, butter, a little salt and pepper to taste, sour cream, mayo, whatever you got. My mashed potato top comes out REAL thick. I usually use about 5-6 potatos. Mainly cause I am feeding Chris and he is a pig. And again- cause we are in a recession and potatos are dirt cheap.

Step 3- Throw the meat mixture in the bottom of a pan that can go in the oven. Then put the mashed potatos on top. If you have cheese and you like cheese, then you can throw a layer of it between the meat and potatos, or just cover the top for looks, or both.



Step 4- Put your beautiful pie in the oven for about 15 minutes. If you are making everything right before dinner, then all the ingredients should still be warm/hot, so it's just going in the oven for the cheese to melt, and for the layers to become intimate with one another in the heat of the oven. If you make this a day or two ahead, then you are obviously going to want this to be in the oven for about 30 minutes, or longer, so that your scrumptious meal is warm.

Step 5- Let it sit for a second or two before serving, and enjoy!


(not the best pic. i'm working on it. again- giant potato layer during the recession. maybe there will be a giant meat layer in times of plenty. whenever that day comes...)