Friday, January 28, 2011

Cottage Pie



Since I had an access of vegetables I had decided to utilize what I had and decided to make Cottage Pie.
What I like about Cottage Pie is that you can easily mix anything in it.  Normally I would add frozen mixed vegetables.  But since I decided that I would utilize what I had to save money...I went a different route.

Ingredients I had were

celery
carrots
onions
half a napa cabbage
garlic
1 lb 80% ground beef
red potatoes
garlic
worcestershire sauce
a few slices of Gruyere cheese.
button mushrooms
milk
room temperature butter

So what I did first was prepare the vegetables.  I grabbed a few stalks of the celery as well as a few carrots and cut those down to smaller pieces.  Cleaned and sliced the mushrooms.  And sliced the napa cabbage.

I then pulled out my food processor and grated the vegetables till they were a fine bits (much like you would find in making pot stickers).  Once that was completed, I sliced the onion till they were all equal pieces, and crushed the garlic.

I put the oil in the pan, put the onion in, and cooked till it was translucent.  I then added the chopped garlic.  Shortly after that I added 1 lb ground beef and cooked till brown, then added the grated vegetables...Stirred it around...Let it sweat, then added salt, pepper and the worcestershire sauce.

After that was done cooking, I put them into two individual loaf pans, leaving just enough room for the mashed potatoes and put it in the fridge.

I had cooked this in two steps as I had run out of milk a few days ago.

The next day I then proceeded to boil the potatoes.  I used 6 red potatoes and boiled them for approx 36 minutes.  I then drained the potatoes from the pot, put them back in the pot, added butter and milk and mashed over stop top...Nearing the consistency that I had wanted, I then added the Gruyere cheese and mashed (and added milk and butter) til desired consistency.

Once it is at the consistency that it is desired you top the mashed potatoes on the ground beef mixture that was sitting in the loaf pans....And let me tell you, I think I may have added just as much cheese as potatoes in this concoction as this was the cheesiest mashed potatoes I've had.

After I was certain that the potatoes and the meat were about room temperature in the loaf pan, I then heated it for approx 35 minutes at 350 degrees (preheated).

This is by far the most 'veggie-filled', cheesiest, Cottage Pie I've made.

And fact of the matter is, it's still good.

1 comment:

  1. This really looks delicious. I love the food and recipes you feature here. I really like to visit and see what you've been cooking. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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