I do not make gourmet food. I make gourmand food. Give me an army, and I will feed it and have leftovers for lunch the next day. This is a wonderful dish, because there is a ton of it, it tastes good, it’s easy to make, and you get to mash potatoes. Because of this, it’s pretty much the perfect PMS food.
Here’s what you need:
- 3 HUGE russet potatoes
- 1-1.5 lbs of a ground meat (beef or lamb preferred)
- An onion
- 2 cups of frozen vegetables of some sort
- 1 can chicken broth
- salt and pepper and worcestershire sauce to taste
- 1/2 a stick of butter
Ready for the super-complex directions? I’ve written them super stupid and hell of efficient for the quickest dinner possible. Here we go!
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Boil and salt a pot of water.
3. While you’re waiting for the water to boil, peel and chop your carrots into strainable pieces. The smaller you cut, the faster they’ll cook, but the more chance you’ve got for them to fall apart, so make a good guess of it.
4. When you’re done, put potatoes into the water.
5. Peel and chop your onions.
6a. Brown your meat. I use a meat lean enough that I don’t have to drain it. 93/7 is pretty great. If you don’t know how to brown meat, heat a pan to medium hot, then flick some water into it periodically. When it sizzles and disappears in a second, throw the meat in. Swirl it around with a spoon.
6b. Season your meat. I throw on the worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper like it’s the honey of the gods. It sweetens the meat a little bit too, which could complement your veggies well.
7. Insert onions pieces when almost all of the meat is brown. Cook until all of the onions are clearish.
8. Insert frozen veggies. I love the frozen peas and carrots combo, plus corn.
9. Is it all cooking nicely? Keep your meat moist with that can of chicken broth. Now’s a good time to check your seasonings. The flavor isn’t going to change any more, so make sure you have something you want to eat.
10. Bring it to a boil, then simmer until you feel the time is right.
11. Are your potatoes done? Sure they are! Drain them.
12. Jo has had a beer and much wine by now.
13. Drop your half stick of butter into the potato. Now mash all of that shit together. If you’re not stupid, you will have a potato masher. If not, and for maximum PMS relief, ’cause you’re obviously a lady, you can use a slotted spoon or a fork or something. FUCK YOU.
13.5. You could, at this point, mash your potatoes in any way you like. But this is the easiest and most flavorful. After your potatoes are mashed or during, or whatever, salt your potatoes. Optionally, you can use salted butter, if you have some just lying around.
14. All of that liquid probably hasn’t boiled off yet, so if you’re really impatient (and I was), you can temper your meat with a couple spoonfuls of the potato. If your meat and such looks creamy, that’s a good sign. I had maybe an inch of creamy soup, but it was fine in the end.
15. Find an 8×14 inch pan. Pour your meat and such into it. Spread it out a little bit so the liquid is evenly distributed.
16. This is the hard part! Take your potatoes and spread it over your stuff. Nooo, all that tasty stuff! At this point, you can make peaks with a fork. At the end of the baking, if you can wait, turn on the broiler so that the top of the potatoes brown pleasantly.
17. Bake for 30 minutes. If you can wait that long. Mine usually comes out after a grueling 25 minutes, 15 of which are devoted to turning on the light in the oven and watching it.
As you can see, my taters are not browned, because I wanted to eat. Pictures! One is bad and the other is overexposed! But it is nommy and delicious.
YESS! Easy food!
PS: I forgot to add that this recipe scales down REALLY well. Put it into a pie pan, an 8×8, whatever. Just make sure your meat is moist, and that you scale down when you use a smaller pan or a different material. But this stuff reheats great, and you could probably freeze it for maximum keepability. But take my word for it: an 8×11 pan usually does not last two days between me and Ryan. And he eats like a little girl.