Shepherd's Pie

As promised the shepherd's pie. We love this dish. It's easy, it's tasty, it re-heats and freezes well. It's so good our roommates even snag some.

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground round beef
5 cloves of garlic (minced)
1/2 large white onion (chopped)
3 cans cream corn
Instant mashed potatoes
1 large oven-safe dish


Procedure:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Chop 1/2 large white onion
3. Mince 5 cloves of garlic
4. Combine raw hamburger meat, garlic and onion in a large non-stick frying pan
5. Break part meat with a wooden spoon while browning over medium-high heat
6. When meat is about half cooked add desired spices
7. Drain fat from meat
8. Layer meat along the bottom of large oven-safe dish
9. Make mashed potatoes
       *We use instant mashed potatoes. Following the directions on the box we use 16 servings to cover the dish. We also add 1.5 extra cups of milk in order to increase the creaminess of the potatoes providing for a smoother texture
10. Layer mashed potatoes over meat.
       *Doing this while potatoes are still hot is easiest
11. Add cream corn over the potatoes
12. Bake uncovered on the center rake of 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.
13. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before eating allowing for pie to set up.


Notes:

*We use ground round beef. Really any kind of ground beef will work. The less fat the less you will have to drain out later.

*Spices - we use a grillmaster spice mix of salt, pepper, paprika, and other miscellaneous things. You can use anything you like. I would at least add salt and pepper though.

*This dish freezes REALLY well. Once the dish is assembled, instead of baking it, wrap thoroughly in plastic wrap and pop it in the deep freeze. We've stored it up to a week, and are sure it could go longer. We just have no experience with keeping it longer than that. If you freeze it, increase cooking time to 1.5 hours.




Pictures!!

Ground beef being broken apart and browned 

Step 5

Draining the fat

Step 7

Meat layered in bottom of dish

Step 8

Mashed potatoes smoothed over the meat

Step 10

Smoothing cream corn over the top

Step 11

Side view of the dish

Finished product view 1

Finished product view 2

View 2 really shows you what it looks like if you don't wait long enough for it to cool. Quite frankly, we didn't care...we were hungry. I enjoy mine with just a bit of ketchup. Marc enjoys changing it up with bits of cheese, or some sriracha (Thai hot sauce)

We used a 16x10 dish to make this. We figure it makes approximately 8 - 10 servings. Assuming 8 servings there are approximately 614 calories to the dish, at 10 servings you are looking at 491. 

So there you have it. Yummy, easy, cheap. :)

Happy cookings!