Christmas Shepherd’s Pie

 
Christmas Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients

Beef Filling:
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 16 ounces canned tomato sauce
• 1 1/2 cups cooked mixed vegetables (peas, diced carrots and corn)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mashed Potatoes:
• 5 russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cornbread Crust:
• 1 (12-ounces) boxed cornbread mix

Directions
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, sauté the onion in vegetable oil. When the onion is soft, add the ground beef, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon and brown. Stir in tomato sauce and mixed vegetables. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

In a pot of boiling, salted water, cook the potatoes about 20 minutes or until fork tender. Drain well and return to the pot. Whip the potatoes with an electric mixer until moderately smooth. Add milk, butter and sour cream and mix well. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper. Adjust consistency with more milk, if desired.
Follow directions on box to make cornbread batter.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly grease 6 (8-ounce) ramekins with nonstick cooking spray.
Spoon the mashed potatoes into the bottoms of each prepared ramekin, spreading them evenly with a rubber spatula. Then add the meat filling, spreading that evenly over the mashed potatoes. Pour the cornbread batter evenly over the meat layer in each ramekin.

Bake for about 30 minutes until the cornbread is cooked through and golden on top.

Our modification: The recipe calls for putting cornbread batter on top and baking. Instead we made the cornbread, crumbled it, sauteed with butter and used that as a topping. In that case everything is already cooked and you just need to bake until warmed through. Approximately 30 minutes should be enough for a casserole with this pre-cooked topping. 20 minutes if you're still using ramekins.

Cooking School Antics

We have a fabulous Cooking School here at Stonewall Kitchen. If you've ever been to a class than you know Richard, the Cooking School's Assistant Manager. Richard is usually up to something during class. He can be seen goggling questions from the back of the room as well as running up to the front of the class to show off a tool that the chef is using. He then finds a humorous way to remind guests that this particular gadget is sold in the cooking school's store. Yes, Richard can make even cooking gadgets funny. When he's not there the cooking school guests always want to know, "WHERE IS RICHARD?"

So, I knew that I could count on him to help me out with a little fun. It all started because I was going to photograph some soup that was being served in class that day. When there is a dish that we want to show off - we photograph it. Lately we've even discovered a talented photographer, Jess, among the school staff - so look out for even more food photos on our Cooking School Facebook page coming soon! But that's a story for another day. Anyway, last week this bowl of soup was brought into the studio for me to photograph.

I made a soup portrait and posted it, along with the recipe, to our Cooking School's Facebook page. Shortly after posting  I saw Lynnie's comment.

We had a guest from the class commenting, live, on Facebook! How wonderful and hilarious. I decided that for this she definitely deserved some more soup. At first Richard wasn't sure about giving her a second helping, but we decided to surprise her. So, in the middle of class we had an extra serving of soup brought out to Lynnie.

She even let me photograph her with it! We know that she enjoyed the soup, of course, because she wrote back to tell us.

It just goes to show that our school is much more fun that any other. Where else would you be rewarded for Facebooking in the middle of class? Thanks to Lynnie & Richard for providing a little mid-day comedy!