Shepherd's Pie (ala Nicko's Kitchen)

I found a new recipe site that I really like called Nicko's Kitchen. It's actually a video recipe site on You Tube. I find I like seeing the videos, but he isn't good about telling you how much time to spend on each part. You have to play that by ear.

I think I've finally found my "keeper" shepherd's pie recipe. I have checked out cook books from the library, tried friends recipes and the internet, but just never found one that had the taste I wanted. Until this one. I used all my own measurements and he doesn't give time instructions so I just played it by ear.


Ingredients:
Yellow potatoes
1/2 cup cream
1/2 stick butter
Salt/pepper
Olive Oil
2 T minced garlic
Carrots
1 lb ground beef
1 bag frozen peas
1 package gravy mix
1 cup water




Instructions:

• Cover bottom of frying pan with some olive oil.
• Add garlic and carrots and cook until softened.
• Add ground beef and mix together. Continue cooking until ground beef is browned.
• Sprinkle gravy mix over beef mixture and add 1 cup water.
• Cook on high for 10 minutes or so until most of liquid is absorbed.
• Cut up and boil the potatoes.
• Add cream, butter and salt/pepper to taste.
• Mash until creamy.
• Place meat mixture into glass baking dish. Spread mashed potatoes on top using a fork.
• Cook in 500 degree oven for minutes.

ENJOY!

Corned Beef and Cabbage Slow Cooker Meal

We had a local Aldi store open up recently. For those of you who don't have one, they call Aldi the "stock up store". They have really good prices, especially for meats and fish. The corned beef briskets were on sale so I bought one. (Mind you, this was after I went to check out and didn't have enough money so I had to put the $8.50 brisket back. The store only takes cash and so I scraped together all our change to go back and buy it since I really had a taste for corned beef and cabbage...and I already had the rest of the ingredients too.) I don't know if it was the "Aldi" brand corned beef or that it needed to cook longer, but the meat wasn't half as tender as the corned beef I've had in the past. I really enjoyed this meal with all the vegetables though; the cabbage, carrots and potatoes turned out great. We did give it a thumbs up but next time will cook the meat an hour or two longer. I may ditch the seasoning packet too. I wasn't completely sold on the flavors. For sure, I think we'll do this again for St. Patty's Day.


Ingredients:
1 corned beef brisket of 3-5 pounds
5 medium-sized yellow potatoes
15-20 baby carrots
1 head of cabbage
3 cloves minced or crushed garlic
1 bottle of Guinness beer
Seasoning packet (if included)

Instructions:

• Place beef brisket in slow cooker.
• Add seasoning packet (if one included)
• Add cut up yellow potatoes.
• Add baby carrots.
• Slice the cabbage into large quarters and add to slow cooker.
• Add bottle of beer and garlic.
• Simmer on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.
• When serving, make sure to use some of the juice from the slow cooker as a light "gravy".

Enjoy!