Easy Waste-Free Shepherd's Pie Recipe

I have a strange obsession with "peasant food." Whatever an impoverished 19th century European housewife was whipping up to feed her growing brood, I want to eat: Boeuf Bourguignon, Pot Roast, Ratatouille, Ribollita. Necessity is the mother of tasty meals. None, however, fills my need for hearty goodness like a Shepherd's Pie. 

Shepherd's Pie is one of my all time favorite dinners to make. Unpretentious and honest, it's pretty much as meat and potatoes as you can get (with an Irish twist). It's a rare combination of gluten-free and a dinner my husband actually asks for (that puts it in a list of one: itself). And it's cheap! Many of the ingredients you probably have on hand (milk, broth, garlic, salt, pepper, butter, flour). At Whole Foods, my ground beef cost $3.76, my split peas were 65 cents, my potatoes were $3.45 and my carrots were 70 cents. The rest I had on hand, which brought my total to a whopping $8.56. 

To top it all off, Shepherd's Pie is also surprisingly easy to make waste-free.

Here's my disclaimer: I've never actually looked at a Shepherd's Pie recipe. I love the dish and I've based my recipe solely on what I've had in pubs and my own imagination. So if you're a Shepherd's Pie purist and I've desecrated something holy, well monsieur, you've completely missed the point of a Shepherd's Pie: to clear out the leftover stuff in your fridge, to be hearty and filling, and to be delicious. Feel free to expand and experiment with this recipe. It's pretty hard to get it wrong, but very easy to get oh-so-right.

Disclaimer over, here's my waste free version of a Shepherd's Pie (serves 2 plus leftovers):

• 4 potatoes (put straight in the shopping basket, no need for bags)
• 4 loose carrots (straight in the basket)
• 1 onion 
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup dried split peas (I bring a mason jar to fill up in the bulk section)
• 1/2 lb ground beef (bought from the butcher, wrapped in compostable paper)
• 1 cup veggie, chicken or beef broth (I like to make my own when I roast a whole chicken. I don't feel too bad buying a can of broth though, as steel is 100% recyclable. Avoid stupid Tetra packaging, as they're not compostable or recyclable.)
• 3 T flour or corn starch (I bring mason jars to fill up and keep in bulk)
• 2 T butter (paper packaging is all compostable, just get real butter with wax paper wrapping, no margarine in plastic tubs or foil wrapping)
• salt
• pepper
• fresh rosemary (I steal from my mom's backyard, but I think Whole Foods sells it package free)
• 1/2 cup milk (I buy Strauss milk in a re-usable glass bottle)

Instructions:

1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil and add peas to soften. Cook until soft and drain. 
2. Meanwhile, chop onions into small bits and cook in 2 T butter in a large skillet. Add ground beef and cook, breaking up into small bits.
3. Chop carrots.
4. Once beef is mostly done on the outside and still pink on the inside, add carrots, peas 2 cloves minced garlic and rosemary to taste. Cook over low heat.
5. Peel potatoes and chop into 2" squares. Boil in water until soft. Add milk, salt and pepper to taste and mash.
6. In a small saucepan, mix 1/4 cup broth with 3 T flour smooth and thick. Slowly add the remainder of the broth while stirring and cook about 5 min.
7. Stir broth mix in with beef and veggies.
8. Pour veggie/beef mix into a casserole dish and spoon mashed potatoes into a thick layer on top.
9. Bake 30-50 min at 400 or until mashes potatoes start to look slightly crispy on the peaks. It's pretty hard to overbake this sucker.
10. Remove from oven, cool for a few min, and EAT!