CROCKPOT SHEPHERD'S PIE

It was time to cook dinner and for some reason, I've had a yearning for shepherd's pie. I get this strange want for certain foods from time to time. The last one I had was for Tommy's and I got my fill when that happened.

I didn't want to have to keep my eye on the pie, so I decided I'd use a slow cooker to cook it. Slow cookers really don't cook as much as heat constantly, so most recipes tell you to cook the meat separately and then add it to the pot. After scrounging around on the net, I decided to use Stephanie O'Dea's recipe that she posted on her blog. It's from 2008 when she went on a rampage to cook a meal every day of the year in a crockpot. That's quite unusual, but I guess she was successful enough and has had quite a number of visits from people.

Rather than using leftover mashed potatoes, I decided I'd make my own and used Cook's Country's recipe for garlic mashed potatoes. I'd done this before and it was pretty good. The problem this time is that I used low fat milk instead of half-and-half and I kind of ran low on the milk.

So I set it on high and let it do its work for about three hours. Then I took the lid off to allow the potatoes to dry-up. This is the time I wish I had some kind of device that can easily upload pictures. Oh well. Anyway, it came out pretty good. I will probably not use the variety vegetable frozen pack since it contains water chestnut and I don't really like the smell of water chestnuts for some reason. Additionally, I doubt England has water chestnuts, though isn't shepherd's pie from Scotland? I also felt the broth could have been thicker but I'm not sure how that could be done. Maybe some thickener can be put into the mixture?