Shepard’s Pie

I’m starting to learn that me and potatoes don’t have a good relationship.

I love to eat them and they love to be eaten by me but they make it so hard.

I was feeling rather festive today since it’s St. Paddy’s Day. Normally I would make a corned beef inspired dish but I didn’t have time to go out a buy any but more importantly, I got a root canal done last week on Thursday so I can only eat soft foods. It definitely limits a lot of what I can eat and I was advised potatoes in any form would suffice just fine.

I’ve never made a Shepards pie but I’ve eaten one. It was pretty good and it looked fairly easy to make. I’m starting to learn on my cooking adventure that the easier it looks to make, the harder it actually is.

Like every meal that I decide to make, I had to go grocery shopping right away after work. I looked at a recipe but I didn’t follow it to a T. I knew I had most ingredients at home save for the ground beef, the potatoes, and the veggies. Basically everything important I needed lmao.

I feel like there’s always that one thing you can’t find when you’re buying ingredients for you meal, at least in my case there always is. I’ve gotten better at improvising and substitutions for my meals, so I’m glad that I’m becoming a stronger cook but god damn.

I found everything relatively quickly. The potatoes were good, however I knew I was going to have problems when I looked at the ground beef they had left. In this household we are strictly 80/20. I love my fat, it adds to the flavor and I will accept nothing less. Except I had to today because there was literally nothing left but 90/10. I was dejected but the show much go on.

I had planned on using canned veggies since I was lazy and didn’t want to do any more chopping or cutting than I needed to. Also I’ve been playing a modded Minecraft server and that has been taking up a lot of my time. I’ll get more into that on another post though.

Right so, canned veggies and less chopping. I found the green beans and corn easy enough but I feel like it can’t be a Shepard’s pie if there’s no carrots.

And just like the chicken broth fiasco, there were no canned carrots.

Making it was not that hard. My only problem was with the beef that I choose. I like to season things. You’ll never find anything bland in our house. But this meat and I were fighting. I knew I was using adequate seasoning but whenever I tasted it, it just tasted bland. Bland enough to where I had to ask my boyfriend to taste test and step in. We tried adding butter to meat so that it would add more fat. It worked a little bit but I didn’t want to try anymore as my meat was getting over cooked.

I didn’t even sweat the mashed potatoes. I could make that shit in my sleep. However I underestimated how much butter we had left so I had use to maragine halfway through. Aint nothing wrong with margarine, I just don’t really like cooking with it all too much. It’s my god given right for my butter to taste like it should kill me. I’m a crocker. I love Country Crock butter guys. It’s more than just a spread to me. Anyway, I use heavy whipping cream, butter, sour cream, salt, pepper, garlic salt, and more butter just to be safe when making my mashies.

Even though I went through all that hard work for those 2 cans of mixed vegetables, I didn’t end up using them. Stupid, I know right. But imagine if you were me, making a Shepards pie for the first time but everyone is hopping on Minecraft without you. You’d skip it too.

It was cool to make, my only regrets would be the beef and the lack of carrots. I should’ve just taken the time to cut the carrots instead of taking the easy way out. The normally tastes better when you put more effort into it.

An effort was made and it was good, I would probably rate it a 6/10.

~ Thx, Shay