Shepherd's Pie

And now for something a little less healthy…

We had a couple requests for shepherd's pie for this week's family and guest dinner and I had the perfect recipe. I'd made it in Virginia for Anthony (ad nauseum he would say) and loved it.

Here is what the website said it would look like.

Disclaimer: we didn't end up using the red onion for this recipe. I realized I needed it for another recipe so I used shallots (my favorite) instead.

Eunice, my guest sous chef peeling the potatoes. We only used 5 big ones. I was pretty happy she helped out for this meal, especially because I hate to peel potatoes.

Yes, we are wearing the same shirt.

One reason that shallots are the best is because they almost automatically go into small bits with little chopping effort.

We forgot to thaw out the beef the day before so I had to fight it.

Look at those professional chopping skills!

We might have forgot to start Danielle's veggie version until halfway through so here's a picture of Eunice getting it all together.

Twins!

The gravy coming along...

Danielle's veggie pie! It actually looked better than the real one.

peas!

MORE PEAS! -Eunice

Veggie pie

Meat pie

Adding the parmesan...

Out of the oven!

Everyone loved it! For some reason, this time the gravy didn't turn out as thick as it normally does but it didn't affect the taste too much. Danielle really enjoyed her veggie pie and most of us even had a taste of it. Definitely did not taste the same, tasted a bit nutty actually, but still very good. I used my grandma's recipe for mashed potatoes which includes about half a pack of cream cheese and half a stick of butter and it turned out delicious as it usually does with all that fat. We also used peas instead of carrots because carrots are gross when they've been frozen. I wish I had been less lazy/stronger so I could have drained more of the fat. Lean meat in Virginia is so cheap I was shocked at the sticker price here and opted for a higher fat content.

Stuck to the script: almost 100% minus the potatoes which I just made from memory because they are by far the best mashed potatoes in the world.