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!  

Vegetable Tian

Font by Miss Tina

Welcome back to Nom Nom Mondays!  Today I made this fantastic Veggie Tian.  I found the recipe on Pinterest, and made it for the first time about a month ago.  Everyone loved it, and it was so easy to make I wanted to make it again.  I can't emphasis how easy this is to make, and it's healthy-ish while staying tasty.  

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

- 1 large yellow onion

- 4 - 5 cloves of garlic (this is my addition to the recipe)

- 3 large roma tomatoes

- 2 medium sized russet potatoes

- 1 zucchini

- 1 yellow squash

- 2 tablespoons of olive oil

- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

- salt and pepper

- dried thyme

Heat the oven to 375ºF.  If you'd like to prepare this dish ahead of time, just leave the oven off :).  Dice the onion into small squares, and mince the garlic.  Clean your veggies, and cut into quarter inch thick slices.  Leave the skin on the potatoes.  I liked to cut the potatoes a bit thinner, and the tomatoes a bit thicker, so they both come out the right consistency.  

Heat a skillet with one tablespoon of olive oil, and then lightly brown the onion and garlic.  Then evenly spread over the bottom of a greased pie dish.  

Arrange all of the veggies in a spiral on top of the browned onion and garlic.  Make only one layer, you should be able to fit everything in.  The first time I made this I doubled the ingredients and baked them in two pie dishes.  

Drizzle the other tablespoon of olive oil over the top, and season with the thyme, salt and pepper.  We had tons of fresh thyme, and none dried which worked too.  Cover with foil, and you can either refrigerate until you're ready to bake, or stick it directly into the oven for 35 minutes.  

After baking for 35 minutes, remove from the oven, and coat the top with parmesan cheese.  Make sure to use the shredded kind, and not the powdery kind.  Stick the dish back in the oven uncovered for another 25 - 30 minutes.  

When the cheese is bubbly brown over the top the veggies are ready to be served!  

Here's a close-up of the yummy bubbly cheese.  Hope ya'll are having a good Monday, happy DIYing, chris.