Recipe: Shepherd's Pie

My mom used to make Shepherd's Pie back in the day and I loved it.  It was always a middle of the week type meal because she could really throw it together easy.  Her version was ground beef on the bottom, then corn, then mashed potatoes, and a nice dollop of ketchup on the plate.  There may have been more to it, but it was still simple and always one of my favorite meals.  My Paleo version is a little bit different, but really just as simple and super quick.  You can make parts of it ahead of time, the whole thing ahead of time or make it all at once in under 30 minutes (including the 20 minute cook time).

1tsp of coconut oil
1 head of cauliflower
1 pound of ground beef
1/4 white or yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 small bag of frozen peas and carrots (Peppers, green beans and other veggies could  also be used in addition to or as a replacement for the peas and/or carrots)



Oven set to 400.

Pot used to steam veggies filled with water and on the stove getting hot!

First, cut the cauliflower into normal sized chunks (the size you would use if you were just steaming cauliflower as a side).  Throw those florets (?) into the pot and let them steam away.

Put your coconut oil in a large pan--this pan needs to be large enough to hold the pound of beef and the veggies.  Heat up the oil on a medium level heat.  Dice the onion and throw into the pan.  Finely chop the garlic cloves and toss them in after the onion has been in about a minute.  Be ready with the ground beef and throw it in after the onion has been coking for about a minute and half.  When the beef is close to being done, throw in the bag of frozen vegetables to warm them up a little.  They will warm up all the way in the oven, but try to get them thawed out at least (you could always just defrost them and throw them into the beef mixture at the last moment).

The baking dish you use does not really matter since everything is pretty hot.  You could use a bread dish (make it useful for something!) or a round casserole or a square pan.  I used a square pan that is actually about 11x11 (odd), but my mom always used a deep round casserole dish.  Just use the one that is easiest to clean, I say.  Pour your beef mixture in there and let it sit while you handle the cauliflower.

You want the cauliflower to be coooked really well.  When you grab it with tongs it should fall apart a little.  Don't drain it just throw each cauliflower piece into the food processor with the standard blade.  Mix that bad boy up until you have a nice creamy mixture.  At this point I mixed in a dash of garlic powder, some black pepper and just a bit of sea salt.  Use a spatula and scoop the cauliflower "mash" out of the food processor and spread over the beef and veggie mixture.  My pan was large, so the cauliflower "mash" was only 1/4 inch thick.  Pop that baby in the oven for about 15 minutes.  If you you like your meat really well done leave it in for 20 minutes.  If you want it to brown on top you will probably need to throw a little bit of grass-fed butter into the cauliflower mixture and/or put some on top of the mixture.

That's it!  Nothing too crazy to prep and you can really make this your own by adding different veggies.  I used an 85/15 organic ground beef.  If you go more lean or sub ground chicken/turkey, then you will want to make sure the dish does not dry out.  You can try adding some chicken or beef stock to the beef mixture when you put it in the pan. 

If you pre-make this in the morning or the night before or over the weekend, then just up your oven time to between 45 and 60 minutes.  If you make the cauliflower "mash" ahead of time I would just nuke it in the microwave or warm it in a pan first.

Enjoy!