Recipe: Shepherd’s Pie

1 1/2 lbs. chuck roast
1 cup carrots (*cut into bite size pieces)
1 cup frozen peas
3 cup mashed potatoes
1 pinch dried thyme
3 cloves minced garlic
2 cup beef stock
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. flour

In a medium size roasting pan, roast the beef at 300 degrees F for 6-8 hours. Remove the meat from the pan, transfer the drippings to a sauce pan, and heat to boiling over medium high heat then whisk in the flour allowing it to cook for 2-3 minutes before pouring in the stock and adding the thyme. Bring the mixture to the boil for 3-4 minutes or until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon.

Into a medium casserole dish shred beef then add the carrots and peas. Pour the sauce over the beef and vegetable mixture and top it with the mashed potatoes.

Bake at 350 for 25- 30 minutes.

*Serves 4

*If your snowed in and don’t happen to have a chuck roast in the fridge you can use a pound and a half of ground beef in its place. Just brown the ground beef in a skillet over medium high heat, remove the meat when no pink is remaining and use the drippings to make the gravy.

*Johnna’s tip: This recipe came in right on time from Chef Zan Dial of Nova Personal Chef. He writes in his email “ 28″ of snow on the ground and you want something hot, filling, and of course Cheap and Easy.” Yup, that’s just what we were thinking and these ingredients are typically in our kitchen so we don’t have to go on much of a scavenger hunt @ our local grocery store. Stay warm and cook something good…it might help with all this cabin fever…