Sheperd's Pie (Recipe)

What can one do with some ground beef and a few extra potatoes? Sheperd's pie seems like the obvious conclusion, although I've never made one before. I did eat one during my visit to Australia back in 2004 and I wasn't too thrilled. Perhaps the frozen variety wasn't the best choice. But I must say, Australia has some of the BEST dairy products (cheese, butter) and meat I've ever tasted. It must be all that sunshine and clean water. Hm, go figure.

Back to my pie. So I think what I did was pretty conventional, but I thought I'd share anyway since I added a few extra things to the conventional recipe. I started out peeling, roughly chopping and boiling 4 large red potatoes until fork tender. I then mashed them with 1/2 stick of butter, 1/4 cup of low-fat milk and salt/pepper to taste. I then set this aside.

In a medium sized pot over medium heat I added 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1/2 tsp. minced garlic, 1/2 white onion; diced, and 2 carrots; also diced. I sauteed this until the onions were translucent. Then I added 1 lb. of ground beef and cooked this until most of the pink was gone, smashing with a wooden spoon the whole while. I then added 1 tsp. celery salt, 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce, 2 tbsp. dark molasses, 2 tbsp. dark brown sugar, 2 tbsp. bourbon whiskey, plenty of fresh pepper and salt to taste.

After another minute of cooking, I then added 1/2 cup of frozen peas and mixed them in as well as 1 tbsp of flour to thicken up the juices. Then I transferred the meat mixture to a 9 x 9-in. casserole dish and topped the meat with the mashed potatoes; spreading it with the back of a wooden spoon. Then I put the pie in the oven for 25 minutes on 375 degrees. After the 25 minutes I turned the broiler on for 2 minutes just to get more crust on the potatoes. Pretty simple and much better than a frozen pie.