Pork Pie and a Guest
2001-08-20 @ 12:10 a.m.
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Last night we had a very dear and very longtime friend of mine join us for family dinner. She is the only person outside of my biological family that I have known so long. Her kids are adults now, and I remember when they were born. We live in the same metro area, but we hadn't seen each other in about four years. I chalk that up to new girlfriend syndrome, only I've been entertaining three girlfriends, two of them new. It's been hard for me to want to schedule any time for anyone else for the last four years.
So I've finally gotten back in touch with L, and I'm very glad. We share a lot of history. She is a writer, so I told her about Diaryland as a great place to practice her craft. Go check her out at kudzuqueen. She's new at computer stuff and probably doesn't have a guestbook yet, but we're working on it.
We all had a great time and my wonderful friend got to meet my incredible family and vice versa.
For dinner we had what I will call Pork Pie.
L called it Shepherdess's Pie because it is a little like Shepherd's Pie. It started as a way to use leftover mashed potatoes. I made two pies, and the five of us ate almost a pie and a half. There was enough left for Jake and me to take for her lunch and my supper at work today. Here are the ingredients. These are my best estimations of amounts since I didn't measure anything.
2 ready made frozen pie shells
1 1/2 lbs ground pork
1 1/2 to 2 cups frozen corn
2 cups mashed potatoes
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 med onion, chopped
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 to 1 cup chopped green chilis
1 to 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 to 2 cups grated cheddar cheese
salt and pepper
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
Saut� the onion, celery and mushrooms in olive oil for a couple of minutes, until the mushrooms begin to turn shiny and the onions begin to get translucent. Remove from the skillet, and use that skillet to brown the ground pork. I salted the vegetables and the pork as I was cooking them and then didn't add any more salt.
In a large bowl mix the pork (drain the fat off the pork), saut�ed vegies, corn, chilis, cumin, Worcestershire sauce, about half of the mashed potatoes and some pepper. I think some hot sauce would be good in this, too. The chilis I used are fairly mild. You can get spicier ones to "kick it up a notch" (can you tell I've been watching Food Network?). The mashed potatoes are a kinda flexible part of the mix. You could put them all in with the rest of the ingredients, put them all on top like a shepherd's pie, or do like I did with half in and half on top. I would like to have had more potatoes to put on top, but like I said, I was working with what I had left-over.
Dip the meat mixture into the pie shells. Top with mashed potatoes and grated cheese. Cook in the oven until the pie shell browns and the filling starts to bubble, about 30 to 45 minutes.
We had salads on the side and a lovely, dry French ros� wine from Anjou. If you make it spicier a Gewurztraminer or a Riesling would be a good match, either dry or just a little sweet. Or beer.
For dessert I made a very easy baked peach pudding that I adapted from a recipe in the current issue of Better Homes and Gardens (September 2001 in an article by Richard Swearinger). The original recipe was for Pour and Bake Pear Pudding. Since I had peaches in the freezer, I used those and substituted a little watered down orange juice for the canned pear juice. Made this way it was sweet and a little tart. It is also low fat because it is made with low fat or fat free yogurt. I'll try to share that recipe with you later this week. The five of us ate most of it, and I got lots of complements. Then, when Badsnake and I went to bed, we took the baking dish with us and finished it off. So decadent.
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