Shepherd’s Pie

Recipes posted one year ago:

• Jerk Chicken Skewers
• Creamy Carrot and Sweet Onion Soup
• Meatloaf

Here is a great “comfort food” recipe.  I have never actually made a Shepherd’s Pie before and was giving myself a big pat on the back as it turned out incredible and even got a huge thumbs up from the kids! I have had this with cauliflower mashed “potatoes” on the top before, but I actually liked this with the sweet potatoes a bit better, but either is an option.  This is a great way to use up some veggies in your fridge so you don’t have to stick with the ingredients I have listed here.

Gather Up:

For Filling

• 2 pounds of ground beef or ground turkey (I actually used a pound of each)
• 1 sweet onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• A handful or so of snap peas, chopped
• 5 or so large mushrooms, chopped
• half a small cabbage, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon or so each of  of rosemary, oregano, sea salt, and pepper
• Tomatoes (I used two jars that I had canned)
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoon coconut oil, divided

For Topping

• 3 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped – Mashed cauliflower is also an option
• 1/4 cup pastured butter (if you are omitting dairy then this can probably be omitted altogether without a substitution)
• 1/4 cup or so of coconut milk

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Just a quick note that I mainly cook on convection.  If you do not have convection then your cooking time may vary slightly from mine.  Put the sweet potatoes in a pot of water and turn on high to get them boiling until they are fairly soft.  In the meantime, get all veggies chopped.  In one pan melt 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and cook the ground beef and turkey.  In another pan, melt 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and toss in the garlic, onions, carrots, peas, mushrooms, cabbage  as they are chopped.  Then add in the spices and stir them in.

Once meat is cooked, drain.  Once veggies are fairly soft, drain if needed and then add them to the meat mixture. Mix thoroughly and then mix in the tomatoes, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce.

Let filling simmer for 5 minutes or so and then transfer to a 13 x 9 pan. You may need to use a slotted spoon so that not all liquid is transferred.

Next, drain the sweet potatoes and then throw in the butter and coconut milk and mix until all lumps are gone.  Spread potatoes on top of the filling. I admit that to get this to spread nice and evenly I used my Pampered Chef Spreader to make it look really pretty 🙂

Bake for 30 minutes or until you can see the bottom bubbling and potatoes are set.  This is great to feed a large crowd.  If not, transfer leftover to containers for lunch the next day and/or freeze some and heat up another day!