MaryLee's Healthy Food and Easy Cooking - Shepherd's Pie

Hello again,

Shepherd’s pie is an oldie and a favourite. There are so many variations you can use for this.

If like me you are trying to cut down on your fat you can do this with chicken, turkey or venison mince rather than lamb or beef. Another alternative if you can find it is ostrich, which is wonderful to eat and virtually has no fat at all.

1 onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 carrots finely chopped
1 cup peas
1 cup sweat corn
1 tbsp (tablespoon) worcestershire sauce
1 tsp (teaspoon) crushed coriander and cumin seed
½ cup stock
500g mince (lean)

Peel and cube 6 large potatoes, place in saucepan, cover with water and boil. When soft drain and mash, add about 2 tbsp milk to help blend potatoes. Some people like to use an electric mixer to whip potatoes, I prefer to mash as I like the texture better.

In skillet/frying pan put mince, onion, garlic and brown. Stir mixture to break it up. Add carrots, peas, corn, worcestershire sauce, crushed seeds and stock, mix well and continue cooking about 1 minute.

Transfer to oven proof bowl spread mashed potatoes over top and place in oven at 375 F or 190 C until potatoes brown on top.

Some like to sprinkle ground parmesan cheese over potatoes when browning, I sometimes like to sprinkle paprika overtop of potatoes.

Depending on the mince will depend on which stock to use. Chicken for chicken or turkey - beef for beef or lamb; if not sure just use vegetable stock.

This is something you can prepare maybe a day before but keep meat mixture and potatoes separate in fridge then put together when ready to put in oven.

It’s a meal in one and is not very hard to make and takes no more than a ½ hour to prepare.

Rather than bake in oven you can just place the mince over the mash potatoes or even put overtop of a baked potato. There are so many choices you can do with this.