Shepard's Pie with Mashed Cauliflower

- March 15, 2023

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner and what a better way to celebrate than a pint of green beer and an Irish inspired meal!

Ok, so we will exnay the green beer, we're not in our twenties or hitting the club scene anymore, right?

Part of my family heritage lies in Ireland, in a place called County Down (Irish: Contae an Dúin). That's where part of my lineage comes from on my dad's side.

Shepard's Pie is one of those comfort foods that just satisfies your craving for a bowl of warm yummyness! But what if you don't want all the carbs from mashed potatoes? Mashed cauliflower is the next best thing!

Let's get started, shall we?

Let's gather our ingredients for the mashed cauliflower.

The recipe I used and adapted is from:

Foodiecrush.com

2 small heads of cauliflower

2 cups of chicken broth (I used beef broth this time)

2 tsp minced garlic

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon of butter, cut into 4ths

Salt, pepper, and smoked paprika

Start by breaking up your cauliflower and tossing the leaves and core. Then wash.

Place your broth, cauliflower, and garlic into pot and bring to a rolling boil, cover. Let cauliflower cook for 15 minutes.

Once the cauliflower is cooked through it will be soft and easily broken with a fork.

Drain cauliflower and place it into your food processor or blender with the parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika.

Puree the cauliflower until smooth, adding the butter chunks while processing.

Your mashed cauliflower is done! Set aside until we're ready to assemble the Shepard's Pie.

Now gather your ingredients for the meat.

Your ingredients for the meat are:

1 lb of ground beef (I used venison burger)

2 tsp garlic, minced

3 tsp butter

2 tsp EVOO

1 1/2 tsp garlic and onion powder

3 tsp Italian seasoning

2 tsp soy sauce

3 tsp Worcestershire

I typically eyeball my seasonings when I'm cooking ground beef or venison, so these measurements are my best estimate.

Brown meat with seasonings until cooked through.

For the veggies, I normally use a bag of mixed veggies, unfortunately I didn't realize I used my last bag of mixed veggies in a pot of Ground Beef Soup! So I grabbed a bag each of green beans, corn, peas, and sliced carrots. I mixed them into the meat mixture and set aside.

Now it's time to assemble!

Preheat your oven to 375.

Grab a casserole or baking dish, a 9x13 works best, and put your meat mixture on the bottom. If you want more of a saucy meat mixture, you can use some beef broth, flour/corn starch and a bit of butter to make a gravy to pour over the meat mixture.

Next you'll layer on the mashed cauliflower, smooth into an even layer as best you can.

Place into your oven for 25 minutes or until heated through.

Once done you can serve with a nice tossed salad! Or you can layer on some cheddar cheese and put under your broiler until the cheese is melted and has some crispy spots like I did here!