BOOMERPDX COOKS SHEPHERDS PIE

Cheers, via J-Howe Studios

The Best Flock Food? Shepherds Pie Of Course. It’s PFM And BoomerPdx Cooks It.

People who like to cook act as if it’s no big deal, but it is.

Who likes to cook? Anyone tired of microwave entrees, boiled sausages, and hamburgers that come out of drive-up windows.

If you have a group to cook for you’ll need flock food to keep them together better than the three delicacies mentioned above.

A shepherd needs a handle on how to make Sheprds Pie. Do it right and it’s magic, pure f-ing magic.

You can feel the magic. Some might say you’ll feel the growler, but that’s part of it.

Shepherds Pie?

Isn’t that what you throw together after you clean the fridge? If something in there is too far gone it goes in the trash; just this side of too far gone and it goes into Shepherds Pie.

This isn’t one of those Shepherds Pie. This one comes from intentional selection of fresh ingredients.

Start with grilled chicken cooked off the flame. The idea is to bone it out and create a pile of seasoned chicken.

If you’re not careful you might catch your chicken on fire. Cooking off the flame ought to mean you can treat it like a slow cooker. Click it and forget it.

Except the chicken may create pools of oil on the up side and when you turn it and walk away it flames on brighter than Johnny Storm.

If that happens you need to separate the blackened stuff from the choice stuff. You’ll end up with less, but always have a Plan B for just such emergencies.

I put the fire out feeling accomplished enough that I didn’t resort to calling Red Adair’s ghost for what looked like a Kuwait oil well blaze on my deck. Damn chicken acted like a grease bomb.

Instead of chucking the whole mess, I picked through and added the salvage to a bowl of chopped organic chicken sausage.

Back at the cook top get ready to fill up more pans and bowls.

Call this Mirepoix Shepherds Pie. Fill one pan with the meat stuff and another with onions, celery, and carrots.

Bring out a big pot for boiling potatoes.

About halfway through the cooking add minced garlic and sliced mushrooms to the meat pan. The mirepoix gets zucchini and white wine.

My goal is keeping all the ingredients proportional, so measure accordingly.

In a separate pan warm up a sauce. A mushroom/french onion soup combo works.

Add the warm sauce to the meat pan and simmer while you mash the potatoes with milk and pesto. Keep it on the runny side for easy spreading.

In a casserole dish, the one I use is industrial size metal, smooth the mirepoix across the bottom.

Add the meat pan stuff on top so the flavor drains down. Use a spatula to spread the top layer without pushing it down. Apply a gently touch.

Top the cooking tray with pesto potatoes all the way to the edges then pop it into the oven pre-heated to 350. After twenty minutes crank it up to 400 for a nice brown top. Ten minutes.

Pull it out and let it rest another ten minutes.

This whole process is accompanied by a variety of beers from the local growler fill pub and the 22 oz cooler in Safeway. Make a beer taste test part of the night.

Since you’re washing pots and pans along the way you’ll finish with a clean kitchen.

Finally, add your family and friends to the table for the sort of memorable dinner people write about on blogs.

Don’t wait for a birthday, holiday, or any day but today, and get after it the BoomerPdx way.

Pure Fucking Magic

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