Brockville Shepherd’s Pie

It’s time to clean out the fridge! Carrots, mushrooms and green beans, sauteed in butter until just tender, then diced.

Brown beef, add anything you like. I put in left over garlic butter and flour to make a paste for the gravy. Then added onion flakes, a dash of red wine, chopped garlic, ground black pepper and concentrated beef bullion. I added a package of gravy mix and beef stock at the end, then added the sauteed vegetables and some frozen peas. Set aside to make potatoes.

Boil potatoes, I never make enough, thus the different top using cheese on this one.

Once potatoes were cooked, I drained and used a ricer to get really fine potato. Add 1/4 cup or so of melted butter, mixed well with a fork. Then add about 1/3 cup warmed half and half (or milk). You’d think it doesn’t matter how you mash potatoes, and in the big picture of things it doesn’t.. but if you try it this way you’ll never ‘just mash’ them again!

I put a thin coat of crisco oil on a Brockville no. 9 cast iron skillet. Line it on the bottom and sides with potatoes. Add beef mixture. Use the rest of potatoes to go around the outside of the pie. Then chopped chives, then cheddar cheese. Dot the top potatoes with butter. (Dot the butter closer to the inside of pan so when it melts it doesn’t run over your skillet.)

I put a cookie sheet on the bottom rack but nothing overflowed.

Bake at 40o for about 35-45 minutes until potatoes are golden brown.