Leftovers and Shepherd's Pie

A beautiful evening breeze is blowing through the windows. D and Kid #1 are finishing up their epic read of 'The Lord of the Rings'. Kid #2 is in bed and asleep. All is peaceful and quiet. Believe me, the moment is not lost on me. I should by rights be outside enjoying the cool breeze on this summer night. But instead I am inside, writing this post. Because I love it, I guess. I love how doing this blog has inspired me to try new recipes. Things that I probably would not have considered previously or just wouldn't have given time or effort to. There's a real creativity to it - ya know. I enjoy and savour...

We had a nice BBQ the other day and D made his own burgers. It was a beautiful mix of meat and spices, done perfectly and served on my homemade buns. Yum. D BBQ'd a crazy amount though, which is good I guess because then we have leftovers. Boy, do we have leftovers. What do I do with all the leftovers? I ponder... chili, salisbury steak, stew... I can't decide.

However, I had potato in the cupboard and earlier in the day I had ridden off to one of the local Farmer's Markets and picked up a dozen ears of corn. This is just about perfect corn time and at our house it's sacred. We eat it for meals all by itself, boiled perfectly (just a few minutes in boiling, salted water) and with copious amounts of butter - is there any other way? I also cut some fresh off the cob and freeze bags of kernels for the winter months. Beautiful fresh corn in the middle of winter. That was it, I had to use some corn.

What ended up happening? I made a Shepherd's Pie of course! Once the ingredients were in front of me it all made sense.

Leftover Shepherd's Pie

serves 4 - 6

Meat mixture

1/2 an onion, diced small

1 rib of celery, diced

3 cups of mushrooms, sliced

1 cup green beans, cut in half

2 cups of spinach, diced

4 - 5 leftover, cooked burgers (1 1/2 lbs ground meat), chopped small

2 - 3 cups of beef broth

couple of pinches of salt

spices to taste (I added some cinnamon, parsley, nutmeg, rosemary)

3 tbsp sugar

1 tsp cayenne (optional)

1/3 cup cornstarch made into a paste

2 cobs of corn (kernels cut off the cob)

Potato mixture

5 medium sized potato's cut up for mashing

1 - 2 cloves garlic

1/3 cup butter

1/4 cup milk or cream

cheese for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large pot of water boil the potato's and garlic cloves until they are soft and mashable.

In another pot (preferably oven proof so that you don't have to dirty an extra pot) saute the vegetables in some oil until they are soft - about 5 minutes. Add in the chopped burgers. Season with the spices, salt and sugar. Add in the broth and let the mixture come to a simmer. Add in the corn starch paste, make sure to add just enough to notice that it's thickening up. Check the taste and adjust as necessary.

Drain the potato and add the butter and milk. Mash the potato. Place the corn kernels on top of the meat mixture. Spoon the potato over the corn. Smooth out the potato and sprinkle with cheese. Bake the mixture for about 25 minutes or until bubbly. Let it set for about 10 minutes once it's out of the oven. Serve.