Cooking Meals for Kids

My whole family loves this shepherd’s pie recipe. But what’s not to love about ground beef, gravy and mashed potatoes, true comfort food. The original recipe came from Rachael Ray but we’ve changed it slightly to the way we like it.

Ingredients:

4-5 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

Salt

2 T Olive Oil

1 lb ground beef

handful of baby carrots, chopped

1 small onion

1 bay leaf

1 T finely chopped garlic

Pepper

5 T butter, divided

3 T flour

2 cups beef stock

3 T Worcestershire sauce

2 T Dijon mustard

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup corn off cob

1 cup milk

1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese

1 egg, beaten

Directions:

Place potatoes in a medium saucepan with a dash of salt and enough cold water to cover them. Bring to boil then simmer potatoes til tender, about 15 minutes. Drain cooked potatoes.

While potatoes are cooking, place a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat with 2 T olive oil and brown the ground beef.

Add the carrots, onion, bay leaf and garlic to the pan and season vegetables with salt and pepper, cook veges til tender.

Heat medium saucepan and melt 3 T butter. Sprinkle the flour over the butter and cook for about a minute. Whisk 1 cup of beef stock into the roux and simmer until thickened, 2-3 minutes. Whisk the Worcestershire and dijon into the gravy and season with salt and pepper.

When veges are soft add remaining 1 cup of stock to pan and stir to remove bits on bottom of pan and cook away some of the liquid. Remove skillet from heat and stir in the peas and corn. Stir the gravy into the mixture and reserve.

Mashed the potatoes with the remaining 2 T butter, milk, and about 1 cup of cheddar cheese. Stir the egg into the mixture at the very end and season with salt and pepper.

‘Frost’ the meat mixture in the skillet with the potatoes and top with the remaining cheddar cheese. Place under the broiler to brown. Serve straight from the skillet.