Today's dinner : Medicinal Shepherd's Pie

I've said before - many times, I suspect - that Shepherd's Pie is, to me, more of a medicinal thing than simply a comfort food thing.

I've been hankering after a Shepherd's Pie for a little while but the weather has just been wrong for the making, not to mention the eating, of one.  So when things cooled down a few degrees and I found myself with a pack of lamb mince (because the Pilaff should have been lamb instead of chicken - I took the wrong thing out of the freezer!) and both hubby and I had tender tummies, it was an easy choice.

Not just any old Shepherd's Pie, though.  If I was going to go to all the time and effort of making one, I was going to make my Really Lamby Shepherd's Pie.  Click on the name there and it'll take you to the recipe - for me, it's the ultimate in Shepherd's Pie recipes.

Just look at that beautifully baked top. Mmmmn.

Now I will admit that the whole recipe lives or dies on what stock you use.  Because the big gravy granule producers (Knorr, Bisto etc.) haven't seen fit to produce a lamb version, (or if they have, I haven't found it) the gravy for this production has to be based on a lamb stock.  Now Knorr do make a lamb stock cube, but it is frightfully salty.  A far better idea is to use Essential Cuisine's utterly fabulous Lamb Stock powder.  Nowhere near as salty as standard stock cubes, it has a rich deep lamb flavour and leaves you to add how much or how little salt you want/need.

I served mine with Vegibox's gorgeous carrots, along with some broccoli and peas.  Don't forget to use the broccoli stem - it's just as nice as the fluffy bit!

You know, there's no hope for me.  Because, as I have been tidying up the photographs for this blog post, my mouth has been watering.  I only stopped eating dinner about an hour ago!  I'm not hungry (not at all), it's just that it looks so good!  Mind you, I wasn't feeling so chipper by the time the veggies were in the steamer and I'd spent the previous two hours cooking the Shepherd's Pie.  I looked rather like this .... worn out and ready for a nap!