Shepherd's Pie

So I know I titled this post shepherd's pie but in reality, this is going to be a recipe for cottage pie. However, when I'm searching through my recipes to make this one again, I will mostly likely call it a shepherd's pie. This is because it wasn't until very recently that I learned a shepherd's pie has to have lamb in it to be called that. The ground beef version that a lot of us making here in the US is really called a cottage pie.

This is the recipe I started with and I tweaked it a bit. I made this for David's birthday dinner (with a pound cake for dessert---talk about a heavy meal!) so I made it the night before and baked it day of (the original recipe says 25 minutes. I baked it for 40 minutes, probably because I didn't bring it back up to room temp before putting it in the oven).

We had a big bag of frozen mashed potatoes from Ruby's Pantry so I didn't bother making my own (and because I was trying to use up this bag, our casserole ended up more potato than anything but it turned out okay). I left out the celery and mushrooms. I used onion powder instead of onion (can you believe that I think we are out of onions??). I didn't use fat free beef broth. Instead, I used beef stock (from Ruby's again!). I also used dried spices instead of fresh. Then, I don't keep tomato paste on hand so I just used the equivalent amount of tomato sauce (mushroom flavored). We also don't have Worcestershire. I always substitute this with liquid smoke. And I didn't sprinkle it with paprika because I didn't know how the Ruby's potatoes were already seasoned.

This turned out SO good. David's family was over to celebrate and everyone gave it rave reviews! I do wish the ratio of potatoes to meat had been a little more equal but that was my doing, not the recipe's. Definitely definitely definitely going to make this again.