Shepherd's Pie - Secret Recipe Swap

It's that time of the month....Surprise Recipe Swap....yay....that means for the past weeks I have been blog stalking a fellow food blogger :-) Custom Taste has such a vast variety of healthy, unique and very allergy friendly recipes. I myself am lactose intolerant so it was nice to find recipes that had lactose free substitutes. I liked how each post/recipe has a list of needed tools or hardware you will need to cook/bake the recipes. I also saw a few links to online stores that gives you the option to purchase the needed items if you do not already have them.

Another great feature on the posts at Custom Taste is that they have added nutritional values, tips & tricks, reheating and storing instructions too. Oh and before I forget, cost of their recipes was also included....of course this is subject to change depending on where you live and shop.

Straight out of the oven!

After going through all of the recipes on Custom Taste I decided to try the recipe for a

 Simple Shepherd's Pie. 

And now am glad that I did! This is an easy and very tasty recipe. Something I hadn't tried before was to grind the dry spices before adding them to a recipe. Well let me tell you it is something that I am going to try again in recipes to come. 

Simple Shepherd's Pie

3 potatoes, washed but do not peel**

3 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 onion, chopped

3-4 mushrooms, sliced

1 lb ground turkey or beef

1 cup milk (I used lactose free milk)

2 TBS olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

Spices   

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried rosemary

1 tsp dried sage

1 TBS dried parsley

Grind these spices and set aside for later. You can either use a mortar and pestle to grind the spices together or you can put them in a blender (I used my Bullet to grind them).

Directions:

Chop all the vegetables; carrots, onions and mushrooms go in a bowl for later and potatoes go into a pot covered with water.Bring the potatoes to a boil and cook them until fork tender. Drain and return to pot. Mash the potatoes with the milk, olive oil and salt. Set aside.

Meanwhile brown your meat in a nonstick skillet. Once meat is not longer pink add the set aside vegetables and stir in the ground spices. 

Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a square baking pan with foil and spray lightly with cooking spray.

Scoop just enough potatoes to cover the bottom of the baking pan. Top with the meat & veggie mix and then cover with the remaining mashed potatoes. 

Bake uncovered for 25 minutes. 

**Custom Taste broiled the Shepherd's Pie for 3 minutes before removing....I opted not to do this**

Let cool for 5 minutes before serving. ENJOY!!