Shepard's Pie on the fly!

I bought a pie dish and I had mince. So I got creative and made this up on the fly. HOLY BALLS IT WAS AMAZING! This is super easy to make, and don't be too strict on the portions, ingredients.... well its damn basic and get creative like I did.

Ingredients:

Meaty bit

500g of mince (whatever type you want, I used extra lean low fat pork because that's all I had in the freezer)

Can of Heinz Big Red Tomato Soup (it's the tastiest one)

Salt and Pepper

Garlic

Red wine

2 Carrots (diced)

1 White onion (diced)

Masterfoods Roast Vegetable Sprinkle (RVS) - each time I add in a few shakes. 

Masterfoods Pepper Steak Seasoning (PSS) - ditto to above

Top bit

4 potatoes (I used 3 which was barely enough, so go for 4)

Butter

low fat milk

Masterfoods Roast Vegetable Sprinkle (RVS) - each time I add in  a few shakes. 

Instructions:

Preheat oven at 180

Put onion into hot pan with garlic (I used the jar of pre minced garlic, much easier) cook until slightly browned. Add mince, RVS, PSS, salt and carrot, cook until meat is sealed (browned)

While waiting for meat or onion to brown, wash, peel and cut potatoes into quarters (smaller if it is a big sucker) and place into pot of boiling water. Add RVS to water.

After mince is sealed, add can of Heinz, splash of red wine and mix - you may have to add a bit of water if it is too thick; as it is going to simmer for a while on a low heat and you don't want it to dry out. Mix occasionally for 10mins and meanwhile....

....Once the potatoes are soft and slightly mushy, drain majority of the water and put pot back on low heat. With a masher, mash away! Add as much butter and milk as desired (you don't want it to be like a liquid, you just want it to be mushy - mushier than usual because this is going in the oven).

OPTIONAL BIT

I put some pastry down the bottom of my pie dish because I had some and I wanted to do it. My mum when she makes this she doesn't use pastry at all. So if you want it more pie like, use enough pastry to cover the bottom/sides of your pie dish. Have a little bit lipping above the dish edge to make it super pie like. I ran out of pastry so I couldn't do it, but that would be the best way to do it. Make sure that the pastry is COMPLETELY thawed before you add the meat and mash. 

If you don't want to add pastry; YOU NEVER READ THIS SECTION

Once the mash is done, add meat into the pie dish first, then cover the top with the mash. Make sure all meat is covered by the mash. Sprinkle PSS on top and you can add a bit of shredded cheese to the top. 

Place dish in oven until cooked... Yes, I know that is vague. But with my shitty oven it is very temperamental and is hipster. So I cooked it until it went from this:

To this:

(probably between 10-20mins)

And while you are waiting for it to cook, I suggest having a glass of red wine. Why? Because you damn well deserve it! (plus red wine is great with red meat). I enjoy a nice Pinot Noir

My second serve. Was so tasty I forgot to take a photo of the first!

Serve up and devour! Really great with a side of Green beans :)