I am a meat and potatoes kind of girl.

   Have you ever wondered what kind of food you would take with you if you were stranded on a deserted island? Well I have, many times, thanks to my lovely husband who asks this question at least once a week. I do have to admit that my choices change, depending on the moon phase, but no matter what, I need to have eggs, cheese, and of course meat and potatoes with me. Sounds like a lot for a deserted island, but for such a food lover like me it's not nearly enough. What can be better for a meat and potatoes girl then some scrumptious Shepard's Pie? I had one recently in a restaurant and unfortunately it wasn't too good, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and make a proper, flavorful, and delicious Shepard's Pie, with no artificial ingredients.
Here is the shopping list:

3 lbs of lean ground beef
3-4 large potatoes
1 cup of frozen peas
1 cup chopped carrots
1 chopped onion
chopped parsley
olive oil
Worcestershire sauce
0.5 stick of butter
1 egg
0.5 cup of milk

   Cook potatoes in salted water until tender and then mash them with butter, milk, and egg. While potatoes are cooking saute onions, peas, and carrots with olive oil, then add ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, salt, and pepper to taste. Cook everything together until the meat is no longer pink. Put the beef on the bottom of a baking dish (about 2 inches thick) and using a piping bag (the same you use for decorating cakes with frosting) pipe the potatoes on the top of the meat. If you don't have a piping bag you can just layer potatoes with a spoon, just make sure you "spike" them with a fork, which will allow them to brown nicely. Bake it at 400F for about 30 min.

   I like to make it into single servings with small individual baking dishes. First of all, it looks really cool, second, it's much easier to serve, and third, it's super easy to take with you to work for lunch! If you for any reason don't like beef (I have no idea what reason can it be!), you can substitute it with a ground lamb, it's delicious as well and maybe even better. No matter what meat you put in it, I'm sure everybody is going to love it... I know we did!

   And there goes my post-Xmas diet. I devoured this bad boy like I was kept in a dungeon for a week without any food. Hey, tomorrow is a new day to start a diet... oh wait, we do have Shepard's Pie leftovers... well, lets wait a couple more days!

Hope you like it.
Magda