Shepherds Pie

This is one of the first recipes I found using Allrecipes.com and a favorite in our house.  I've been craving it for several days and tonight is the night!  One of the reasons I like Allrecipes so much is because it allows members to review the recipe and make suggestions on how to improve or tweak it.  For that reason I will be posting the link to the recipes I get from there, as well as the original recipe here in my blog along with my personal changes.

American Shepherds Pie 

Ingredients

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed vegetable soup
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 3 cups mashed cooked potatoes
• 1 cup shredded Colby longhorn cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and lightly grease a 2 quart baking dish.
2. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, stir and cook ground beef, onion and celery until juices run clear. Drain. Pour mixture into baking dish with vegetable soup and thyme; stir well. Spread mashed potatoes on top.
3. Bake 20 minutes. Sprinkle shredded cheese on top and bake 5 minutes more, or until cheese has melted

My Changes

• I use 1.5-2.0 lbs of ground beef, we like our food meaty.  I also usually add garlic salt to the meat/onion concoction, because my husband thinks garlic belongs on everything.
• I don't use celery or thyme. Just not a favorite of me or the hubs.
• I use cream of mushroom soup instead of vegetable.
• I add a veggie layer on top of the meat layer: almost always corn, but lately I've been adding green beans as well.  Husband likes it when we use green peas, but I hate green peas so that's rare.  That's the beauty of this recipe though, it's SUPER easy to customize to your own preferences.
• We sometimes add biscuits to the top.  I had a revelation the other night when I made upside down pizza though, and I'm thinking of using crescent rolls instead.  I'll come back & update this post after I experiment with it.