Mashed Potatoes with Cabbage and Scallions (p.296) and Shepherd's Pie (p. 102)

First, how do you keep all of the blogs you like to read straight? I have a ton that I like to read but I forget about them! So are there any good gadgets to keep them organized? I kinda like igoogle but if there is something better, I would like to know about.

Second, some people were telling me that the pictures on this blog weren't showing up for them--I don't know why, they always show up on my computers...is anyone else having this problem? I recognize that I'm not a wordsmith, so the pictures are important :)

Third, you don't have to have a blogger username to comment, so comment freely! I love reading them :)

I decided that Josh and I were going to have "Pub night" so, obviously, that means some sort of meat pie. I was content with cottage pie, because I don't always like ground lamb, but Josh decided he wanted to be a purist, and go for lamb--so, shepard's pie (cottage pie is the same thing but with beef--obvious, you aren't a shepard if you don't have sheep!).

Although Shepherd's Pie (p. 102) is a complicated recipe, it isn't very difficult. First, you boil and mash some potatoes. Every time I make mashed potatoes I wonder why I don't make them more often--they are so easy and I like them so much! I also couldn't find my ricer so they had to be mashed with the smasher. I bought my ricer at a antique market in FL (there are dozens of awesome kitchen gadgets at antique shops), and it's about a billion years old, but it has character and I like it. That being said, it seems to have disappeared--maybe it went to find it's old family.

Josh is always in charge of the mashing, he really takes joy in it. I think he works out some aggression that way.



The next step is to make a mirepoix. I think a mirepoix is the base of at least half of the recipes in this cookbook. The recipe does say chopped instead of diced, so this isn't an example of my terrible knife skills (well, not this particular picture).




You mix in the lamb (you can use cooked lamb but I can almost guarantee that we will never have any leftover cooked lamb), add broth, and spices. When this is done, you have the base to the recipe! Again, the recipe has a lot of steps and produces a bunch of dishes to be washed but doesn't really require much talent (my kind of recipe!).




The meat mixture is put into a casserole dish, with the mashed potatoes on top. It said to make peaks in the mashed potatoes--I have no idea how to do that, so mine were peak-less. Mmmm....and butter on the top...





Now, this recipe looks pretty before you break into it but it doesn't cut easily. Even so, it was really good.

The recipe is online.

I also decided to make Mashed Potatoes with Cabbage and Scallions (p.296), which, if fried, is known as "bubble and squeak" which is a great name! Now, I have no idea how or why you would fry this concoction, so mine neither bubbled nor squeaked. If I ever go to the UK, it's first on my list of things to try (and fish and chips...I LOVE fried fish more than I should). I've learned during this cooking experiment (cooking through TJOC) that I really like cooked cabbage, which I didn't know. And cabbage is EXTREMELY cheap, which is awesome. And everyone likes mashed potatoes! But scallions--not only do I not keep scallions on hand but there weren't any at the grocery store.

I decided to cut them out (I know they're in the title but I wasn't going to search the town for the stupid things!) so I added some garlic instead.

One of the first instructions in the recipe is to core the cabbage. How does one core cabbage? Where is the core? I opened the cabbage up, looked into it, didn't see a core, and randomly cut some parts out of the middle. It didn't seem to matter or impact the recipe at all.

So, to begin, you pretty much put some potatoes (I used Yukon Golds, of course) in a pot, add water, cut some cabbage, and layer it on top. Then you boil this for a while.


It's really hard to fit that many potatoes and cabbage pieces into a pot.



I used heavy cream instead of half-and-half or milk, plus a full stick of butter (obviously not a low fat recipe) and the recipe was a little runny. It was delicious anyway. You end up mashing the whole mixture, which is fairly easy. Apparently cabbage mashes down easier than potatoes so the whole thing is fairly easy.



It was great although it made a huge amount which we ate for about a week afterwards.