I make a shepherd’s pie every few weeks.  The best one I’ve ever had was in a Irish restaurant in Charleston, SC.  They used buttermilk and bacon bits in the potatoes.  Oh boy, that was good!

Here is a version I made this week.  It takes me about 40 minutes to get it all made up.  Use a good sized oven safe skillet for this dish.  If you don’t have an oven safe skillet, you can just use a baking dish, too.  I’m just trying to save Brian from doing more dishes than necessary. 😉

Recipe:

1 lb hamburger
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
6 spring onions, sliced
1 small bag carrots, peeled and diced
10 large mushrooms, cleaned and diced
1.5 tsp Montreal Steak Seasoning (basically pepper, sea salt, garlic powder, paprika)
1.5 cups beef broth
1 cup sour cream
2-3 TBSP Worcesteshire sauce
1 package instant potatoes
1 large sweet potatoe
1 cup cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown hamburger with the garlic and steak seasoning on medium high heat.  When it is mostly done, add the veggies and cover the pan.  Ever few minutes give it a stir.  After about 10 minutes, the veggies should be mostly done, so add in the broth, sour cream and worcesteshire.  Simmer and reduce the sauce a bit.

Meanwhile, prepare the instant potatoes, and microwave the sweet potato until done (about 5-6 minutes).  Scoop the sweet potato out of the skin and combine them all together with the cheese.  If you want to make the potatoes fresh, just boil the regular and sweet potatoes together and mash them up with the cheese and some butter when done.  It takes FOREVER for me to boil water on my stove, so I use instant for quick weeknight meals.

Now, layer the mashed potatoes on the meat mixture.  Turn the oven on to broil and put under there for about 10 minutes for the tops of the potatoes to get nice and crispy.  Watch it to make sure it doesn’t burn.

Enjoy!