Shepherd's Pie Dumplings

I love pie. There's something truly magical about the unlikely combination of warm fruit and a flaky pastry that just melts my heart...and the ice cream that is invariably served over it. I remember the first time I heard of shepherd's pie, I was intrigued. What could it be? Did shepherds eat some kind of super secret, awesome fruit that only shepherds knew about? Or was it a savory pie made of sheep and/or their herders? Sadly for naive, 7 year old Marcus it turned out to be none of the above but rather an unconventional pie made of meat and potatoes. Of course, it really grew on me and has since helped in the broadening of my pie-horizons (pirizons?).

We've gone off on some culinary tangents over the past few months, but this week we're back to what we know - our meat and potatoes. So to speak. We made shepherd's pie dumplings using regular shepherd's pie ingredients, but stuffing them into a doughy pocket thing. You'll need ground beef, potatoes, peas/carrots/corn/onion and pizza dough.




1. Make mashed potatoes. Yup. That's step one.







2. Make ground beef mixture. We made ours with onions, garlic and some spices, then added corn, peas and carrots.






3. Roll small balls of pizza dough out into small circles. Fill with meat mixture and potatoes. Fold over and seal with a fork.





4. Bake at 400F until dough is cooked through and browned slightly. Serve with dipping gravy.





Q: What did the guy shepherd say to the girl shepherd? A: Wanna get the flock out of here?