Yep, you read that right!
In the fridge, I had some thawed ground beef, as well as colcannon from a few nights before and a peeled onion and some starting-to-wilt celery... Hmmmm... What to do with all of that?
I started to giggle when I remembered Shepherd's Pie. So, I sautéed the chopped celery and onions until they were just starting to soften. Then I added the ground beef and sautéed it until it was no longer pink. I added a bit of ketchup and some Worcestershire sauce along with a lot of black pepper, a bit of salt, and chopped sage.
In the tour of the fridge that started all of this, I also ran across some gravy I'd made a little while ago... and it was still good! So I added that...
This was all looking and tasting good, so I turned off the flame and added some frozen peas. I spooned the mixture into these little Le Creuset mini-cocottes (mini-casseroles) that Debbie gave me years ago.
I added an egg yolk to the colcannon, slathered it on top of the beef, cooked it in a pre-heated 350 oven for about 20 minutes... turned on the broiler... brushed a little butter on top... broiled for about 10 minutes until the potatoes started to brown... and the two of us sat down to a wonderful, silly, and ridiculously satisfying dinner on a cooooold November night.
Some tips on colcannon:
http://www.thisoldchef.com/blog.html/colcannon/
And here's another possible path to take when making Shepherd's Pie:
http://www.thisoldchef.com/blog.html/shepherds_pie/
