Recipe #2 Shepherds Pie

First I'll fill you in on the recipe. I had only even heard of Shepherds Pie once when my mom told me she had lunch at Cheddars, I asked her what she had and her reply was, "Shepherds pie, you wouldn't have liked it." So I was a little skeptical starting out, but my mission is to try new things! I couldn't give up by recipe #2! This recipe called for Turkey as the meat but I'm not a big turkey fan so I went with beef which I hear is the traditional meat for shepherds pie anyway. And I especially don't like it when turkey pretends to be something it's not...like turkey bacon! The first time I tried that was on a camping trip with my youth group; my youth minister David handed it to me, I tasted it, and I thought he was trying to poison me! This is something I have actually tried and do not like! But I digress....So it's basically a casserole, the bottom of the casserole had ground beef, bacon, onion, carrots, celery, and red pepper. (for the full recipe and instructions you can email me). The recipe called for peas also but I left this out because I don't like peas and I think that peas dominate a dish! If it has peas in it literally all I taste is pea (bahahahah). So let me tell you, cooking the stuff up smelled delicious! I was actually a little excited. The seasoning on the meat (paprika, cumin, and thyme) made me a bit skeptical but the dish ended up with some really great flavors! Then you make some mashed potatoes, and top the casserole with the potatoes, stick it in the oven for a bit until the potatoes brown and that's it. I say that's it like it was easy. It was not easy! There were a lot of steps to this dish and you have to be a multi tasker because you're frying up one thing in the skillet and making the potatoes on another burner and on a third burner I was boiling some water for my beef broth. One thing I learned from this: On Rachel Rays shows she has everything pre-measured and put into bowls so when she's ready for them she just dumps them in. I realized this was extrememly helpful because I was rushed to chop everything and get it in the pot on time so I decided to chop everything I needed and put them in bowls. This did however dirty a lot of dishes, but when I started this journey my mom and I made a deal: I'd cook, she'd clean! haha but we do have a dishwasher so its easy clean up!
For this dish I would recommend having a sou chef...there is a lot to chop and a lot going on. Also, I would recommend having a few extra ingredients on hand just in cash you happen to drop a measuring cup of sour cream on the floor causing sour cream to splash up everywhere! Not that I did this, just a helpful hint in case you might do this. Oh, and don't get so busy with the ingredients in the skillet that you forget about the potatoes boiling! So Rachel says put the potatoes on to boil as you're cooking the other things in the skillet. So I put the potatoes on and didn't worry about them...well apparently she only means to do this if you're a speedy gonzalez in the kitchen. By the time I went back to my potatoes they were completely mush! I contemplated using them anyway because you are supposed to mash them up! But they were a little too mushy! Or a lot!!!!!!!! So I redid the potatoes...I'm a bit of a perfectionist.
Just a note to Rachel: The first thing to do listed was put the potatoes in to cook while you make the filling. Then the next steps are make the filling. After that it goes back to the potatoes, after the potatoes have cooked (about 10-12mins)...ok there's the problem! It took me way longer than 10-12 mins to get everything chopped and cooked. It says, put this in leave for 5 mins, put this in leave for 2 mins, put this in leave for 2 mins...it added up to more than 10 mins! So the 10-12 min part would have been helpful to know on the first step when talking about cooking them. This may be common knowledge to most cookers but I need it dumbed down for me!
My final recommendation is pay close attention to the spices you pull out of the spice cabinet. I just wanted some regular black pepper...now why on earth would someone make the chipotle chili pepper in the exact same kind of can as the regular pepper! That could have been a disaster! Luckily I caught this before I added it to the dish...
Ok, so on a scale of 1-10 I give this Shepherds Pie (with my own variation of ingredients) a TEN!!!!! Loved it! Delish!!!
I should add a pic of the mess that I made in the kitchen though! This place looks like a cooking tornado came through, and I had to change my clothes once in the process I got so messy! But that is the sign of a job well done!