Cottage Pie

Last night I made a tasty dinner called Cottage Pie.  I found the recipe on Martha Stewart's website here.  It's a simple take on shepherd's pie, but with all the flavor and more!

Ingredients:

- 3 tablespoons of butter

- 1 onion

- 2 carrots

- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste

- 1 pound of ground beef

- 1 cup of a dark porter beer

- 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme

- 2 tablespoons of flour

- 1 cup water

- 3/4 cup frozen peas

- 1 large russet potato

- salt and pepper

Directions:

Chop up the onion and carrots into small pieces.  Preheat the oven to 400ºF.  Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet, and add the onion and carrots.  Cook until the onions have browned a bit, and the carrots are beginning to get tender.  Add the tomato paste and ground beef.  Cook until the meat begins to brown.

Then add the porter beer.  My husband is a big beerie, and he picked out this nice beer called Lucky 7 Porter by Evolution Craft Brewing.  The flavor worked really well in this recipe.  I want to make this again, and I definitely plan on using this beer next time too.  

While adding the beer also add the thyme, and season with salt and pepper.  As you can see in the photo I didn't remove the leaves from the stem, but I wouldn't suggest that.  I thought they might fall off, and then I could simply remove the sticks.  That didn't happen, and my husband had to help me remove the hot saucy leaves, so we could get all those unpleasant stems out.  

After the beer has reduced a bit add the flour and water.  Let reduce a little more, and add the peas.  

While that's reducing clean the potato, and cut it into thin slices.  Once the meat mixture has reduced pour it into a 2 quart dish, and cover with the potato slices.    Cover the potato slices with the remaining butter, and season with salt and pepper.  Bake in the oven for 40 - 45 minutes.  The potatoes will be soft in the center, and the skins will be crunchy.  Let it sit for 10 minutes before serving.  The liquid will soak in during that time. 

This was so yummy!  The perfect cold night meal.  I loved the flavor of this, and it was so simple to make.  I want to cook this again sometime soon!  Happy Nom Nom Monday, chris!