Shepherd's Pie + Welcome November

I have cooked and baked lots of things lately and have yet to post about them for a couple of reasons...

1. I forgot to take pictures of the dishes

2. If I did take pictures, I wasn't about to download them off my camera because...

3. My computer has very little RAM left on it due to the huge amounts of photos I take, so I have been trying to move everything over to an external hard drive.

4. The above task has proved to be almost impossible since the power cord on my laptop completely stopped working.

Ugh. A new power cord costs at least $50 bucks and I haven't been able to bring myself to go to the Apple store yet. I'm going to post these recipes eventually this month, if it kills me. So here is something I made last week to bide my time...

Shepherd's Pie is one of those ugly foods. It's not visually stunning whatsoever. The ingredients are incredibly simple, and you honestly don't really believe it's going to taste all that good until you put it in your mouth and it's well, surprisingly delicious.

So I made this recipe last week and it was a total hit for a crisp, cold Fall evening. In my eyes you can never go wrong with mashed potatoes. A complete comfort food meal...

Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients

• 2 pounds potatoes, such as russet, peeled and cubed
• 2 tablespoons softened cream cheese (I just graded in some pepper-jack cause that's what I had)
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1/2 cup cream (I used half and half)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
• 1 3/4 pounds ground beef or ground lamb
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup beef broth
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire, eyeball it
• 1/2 cup frozen peas, a couple of handfuls
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

Directions

Boil potatoes in salted water until tender, about 12 minutes. Drain potatoes and pour them into a bowl. Combine cream cheese, egg yolk and cream (I also added a little butter). Add the cream mixture into potatoes and mash until potatoes are almost smooth.

While potatoes boil, preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add oil to hot pan with beef or lamb (I used beef and it was great). Season meat with salt and pepper. Brown and crumble meat for 3 or 4 minutes. If you are using lamb and the pan is fatty, spoon away some of the drippings. Add chopped carrot (very thinly sliced) and onion to the meat. Cook veggies with meat 5 minutes, stirring frequently. In a second small skillet over medium heat cook butter and flour together 2 minutes. Whisk in broth and Worcestershire sauce. Thicken gravy 1 minute. Add gravy to meat and vegetables. Stir in peas.

Preheat broiler to high. Fill a small rectangular casserole with meat and vegetable mixture. Spoon potatoes over meat evenly. Top potatoes with paprika and broil 6 to 8 inches from the heat until potatoes are evenly browned. Top casserole dish with chopped parsley and serve.

** I cut this recipe in half since I live alone and generally don't feed more than 2 people.

(photo via Marvelous Girl)