Shepherd's Pie




500g beef mince (ground beef)
1 onion - finely diced
garlic - to taste
1 can cream of mushroom soup
green beans - frozen or canned.
4 cups mashed potatoes
cheese - to top

Preheat oven to 180c/350f.

Put potatoes on to boil.

Brown the mince with the onion and garlic. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add soup. Pour mixture into a casserole dish. I like a big round one but any will do.

Add a layer of green beans.

If you haven't already drained and mashed your potatoes, you should do that now ... if they are ready. If they aren't then wait ... raw potatoes don't mash well. Or taste good. I add a bit of milk and a scoop of butter ... but just make your mash like you would normally. Add to casserole, on top of green beans.



Top with cheese. Bake. Uncovered. 20 ? 30 ? minutes ... til bubbly !



YUM YUM YUM !!!

NOW ... I need some advice. I checked the cream of mushroom soup can and while there are no icky preservatives, I'm just not sure how a can of condensed soup that lives on a shelf for years and years could be good for us. SO ... I want to try and substitute something else in it's place. I'm wondering if I could do a white sauce ... maybe with some sauteed mushrooms in it ?

What do you all think ? Any other ideas ?

Also ... has anyone ever frozen white sauce ? How'd it taste when thawed and then used ?

3 comments:

Shirley said...

I can't help you but I'd like to know the answer too. Every time I see a recipe that has cream of something soup, I stop reading because they don't have cream of anything soup here.

Kath said...

If you take flour and sprinkle it on the browned meat and stir it and cook it for a minute, then add milk and stir and cook it till it thickens you have a lovely gravy flavored with all the bits stuck to the pan, no extra fat, cause you are using the beef drippings instead of butter, only one pan dirty, and no mystery ingredients in your dinner! I've never actually measured when I've done this, but for purposes of this blog, I recommend that you use the proportions of white sauce. So....leave about 3T of meat drippings in the pan (if you have less, no worries), sprinkle 3T of flour on the meat, when it has nicely coated everything and all is hot, add 1-1/2 cups of milk and stir away till it's bubbly. Continue with your pie making. AND, I would definitely add some coarsely chopped mushrooms, I'd add them to the pan when I threw in the onions and garlic.

Kath said...

Another comment.........children of mine, do you remember "Tina's casserole"? It was like this except everything was stirred together with tomato soup. That was yummy, too!