"Sweet Potato Shepherds Pie"

The title of this is in quotes because there will be some purists who may find this and state that Shepherds Pie is only made with lamb and mashed potatoes, and if it's made with ground beef, it's Cottage Pie.  I like calling this Shepherds Pie because most people I know are familiar with the dish, and may not be familiar with Cottage Pie.

Anyway.

A few weeks ago, my husband found a recipe in a newspaper at work.  He took pictures and texted them to me with a request to make it.  It didn't seem difficult (and I have made Shepherds Pie and Cottage Pie before, so I knew the basics), so this week, it was added to the meal planning.  I tweaked the recipe a little bit.  Rather than type out the original recipe and the changes I made, I'm just going to post my updated version.  The original recipe can be found here.

So, without any other rambling, on to the recipe.

Sweet Potato and Sausage Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients:

• 2 Sweet Potatoes (I used large ones)
• 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, grated
• 1 medium to large yellow onion, diced
• 3 ribs celery, chopped
• 3 carrots sliced (I used a handful of baby carrots)
• 1/2 pound Italian sausage (I used 3 mild sausage links)
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (I eyeballed fresh ground pepper)
• 1 bottle stout or other dark beer (we had Guinness in the house, so I used that)
• 1 cup or so frozen sweet peas
• 1 1/2-2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 3 Tbsp cool water
• 1 - 8.25 ounce can creamed corn
• 1 cup frozen corn (again, I eyeballed this)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 Tbsp butter/margarine
• 1 Tbsp packed brown sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray/lightly oil your baking dish of choice and set aside.

Place chopped sweet potatoes in a pot and cover with water (covering potatoes by approximately 1").  Bring to a boil and cook for about 10 minutes, or until soft.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, combine olive oil, onion, celery, and carrots over medium high heat.  Saute for about 4 minutes, then grate in garlic and continue sauteing another minute.  Add the ground beef and sausage.  Cook until meat has browned and is cooked through (about 8 minutes)

Add beer and peas.  Simmer until liquid has reduced by half (4-6 minutes or so).

In a small glass bowl, mix the cornstarch and the water to make a slurry.  Add this mixture to the skillet and stir until thickened (this should be a very quick thing).  Remove from heat and pour this mixture into the bottom of your baking dish of choice evenly.

Mix the can of creamed corn with the frozen corn and layer this evenly on top of the meat mixture and set aside while you finish up the sweet potatoes.

Once the sweet potatoes have cooked, drain them and return them to the pot.  Add the butter, brown sugar and half of the milk.  Mash this all together and add more milk as needed to make it as smooth as you'd like.  (I ended up using about a half cup of milk.)  Season with salt to taste.

Spread this evenly over the corn layer.

Bake for 35 minutes or until potatoes are lightly browned at the edges.

I put a sheet pan on the shelf directly below this to catch any overflow.  It turned out to be a smart thing to do.

Hubby and I really enjoyed this dish.  I think next time I'll leave out the creamed corn and just add the corn to the meat mixture.  Hubby doesn't like creamed corn anyway and I'm not sure it really added that much to the recipe.

I was a little concerned about the sauce flavor when I was making this.  All the other recipes I've used called for Worcestershire Sauce, but this just used the beer.  I'm not a beer drinker (my husband always tells me I don't like anything good), but the flavor in this sauce was really good.  It didn't need the Worcestershire Sauce in my opinion. 

Please try this and let me know how it comes out for you.

Thanks and Happy Eating!