Mini Turkey Shepherd's Pies

Mini Turkey Shepherd's Pie

I've played around with shepherd's pie flavor in the past.  This time I wanted to play around with the layers.  My natural inclination is to mix everything together.  This time around I wanted to separate each ingredient and flavor and let them mix together in a perfect bite.

I started out by planning the dish on a post-it note.  I drew a semblance of a pie dish with layers, numbered those, and then started filling in the legend.  I ended up with 4 layers:  caramelized onions, browned and seasoned meat, peas and carrots, and creamy mashed potatoes.

While on a shopping trip to pick up all the necessary ingredients, I came across some portabella mushroom caps and immediately knew that I would want to insert them as a layer between the onions and the meat.  I cheated a bit by picking up frozen peas and carrots to make my prep a bit easier.

For simplicity's sake, I only seasoned the meat with Worcestershire sauce and the mashed potatoes with salt.  I wanted the flavors of everything else to speak for themselves, and speak they did!  The sweetness of the caramelized onions mixed perfectly with the earthiness of the portabella mushrooms.

I think the layering effect came out really nice.  I got to play with one of our new goodies, oven safe soup bowls.  They made a perfect serving size.  The Guinea Pig got to play with another one of our new goodies:  a food mill.  He did a great job ricing the potatoes.  Perhaps some of the best textured, though labor intensive, mashed potatoes we've ever made.

Spinach, Mango, and Edamame Salad

Spinach, Mango, and Edamame Salad

This being spring (or summer as it has been lately), I've been hoping we could eat more leafy green things to stay healthier...or at least attempt to do so.

Spinach is always a good green leafy choice.  While picking up spinach at the store, there were nice ripe mangoes that I thought would go well with the spinach.  Wanting one more ingredient, I added edamame.

While trying to come up with the dressing for my salad, I seem to have come up with a decent, Asian inspired vinaigrette that does not involve vinegar.  Equal parts of sesame seed oil, lemon juice, and sesame seeds.  The acidity was perfect for the spinach.

Braised Rabbit

Braised Rabbit

For a while now I've been wanting to braise a rabbit. Lots of delays later, I finally got around to it. I would hope that The Guinea Pig considers it well worth the wait. 


I recently received a gorgeous Le Creuset braiser that was used in the preparation of this meal. Ever since I got it, I kept trying to come up with a good combination of ingredients that would enhance the rabbit without overpowering it. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, but thought that onion alone would be too simple. 


My "Eureka" moment came while I was at work trying to work out a problem. It dawned on me that golden raisins would be perfect, and they were! They added a bit of sweetness and plumped up with the juices of the dish. 


The onions, raisins, a splash (or cup) of white wine, and salt/pepper were all that I used. Once it was done braising, I served the rabbit and sauce over a plate of pearl couscous. 


For a first try, it was pretty good. Next time I'd like to get the rabbit seared a bit better and the onions caramelized a bit more so that the dish would have a deeper color. I bet my Guinea Pig would also appreciate it if I toned down the seasoning a bit.

Bacon Hash

Bacon Hash

Life has been crazy and this little blog of mine has suffered as a consequence.  To breathe new life into it, what better topic is there to post about than bacon?

For Christmas, I got a cook book devoted to bacon.  The very first (and unfortunately only so far) recipe that I have tried was a bacon hash.

I'm still honing in the bacon sizing on this one.  I've now made this recipe twice, once with bacon slices of about an inch and another of about a quarter inch.  Neither was satisfactory.  Next to try is a half inch slice.

Don't get me wrong, the outcome was delicious each time.  I just want that perfect balance of the amount of bacon in every bite without it being overpowering.

The one thing that did surprise me when making this recipe was the ease with which potatoes got grated.  I've always expected it to be a lot harder, more like what grating carrots feels like, but it was almost easier than grating an apple.