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?

Curry Lasagna

After finally recovering from the burger cake incident and its ensuing fallout, we spared no time getting back into the kitchen. In combining lasagna and curry, you could call this next creation our first truly interracial dish. Imagine - the delectable, comforting Italian intermingling with some exotic, spicy Indian. I smell a feel-good romantic comedy featuring Milo Ventimiglia and Freida Pinto. I would totally pay to see that.

Wait, no I wouldn't. Okay, maybe I would.

Our ingredients included lasagna, chicken breast, potatoes, plain yogurt and 2 types of curry - butter chicken and tikka masala. The basic process is the same as a traditional lasagna, but using curry instead of tomato sauce and yogurt instead of ricotta.




1. Cut up chicken breast into small pieces, season and cook. Mix cooked chicken pieces into the curry.





2. Layer a deep pan, starting with curry at the bottom. Sprinkle with diced potatoes, then add lasagna, yogurt and more lasagna. Repeat this process until you reach the top of the pan. We used oven-ready lasagna, so there was no need to boil it beforehand.





3. Bake according to package instructions.




I just realized it's Friday the 13th. With my luck, I'll stumble upon another burger cake that I'll be forced to choke down.

Deep Fried Macaroni and Cheese

How do you make an already awesome dish like macaroni and cheese even better? A generation ago the answer would have been simple: add bacon. This approach is very basic but has been the most reliable food-enhancer for years. I believe the culinary world has evolved in flavors and complexity since the days of our parents and grandparents, and today the answer has become much more complicated: add bacon and deep fry it. This formula works so well it almost seems like cheating. Using the bacon/deep-fry combo is like playing basketball against your kid sister/a midget - a little too easy and doesn't require a great deal of effort or skill, but ultimately still satisfying. So here are instructions on how to make deep fried mac and cheese:





1. Make macaroni and cheese. We used elbow macaroni and mixed it with cheddar, ricotta, sausage and bacon.






2. Wrap in a tortilla and hold in place with skewers.






3. Deep fry. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we don't own a lot of equipment. If you don't have a thermometer, don't leave the stove heat on too high like we did. We learned a valuable lesson in the smoke point of vegetable oil.





4. Eat.





Although we initially decided to just make deep fried macaroni and cheese, this session turned into sort of an experimental night. Since I don't want to make a post for each item, here's some of the stuff we made.

Another one, deep fried for less time with a thin coating of batter

Potato chips and sweet potato fries

Shrimp (the darker ones are coated with breadcrumbs)

Viva Puffs (marshmallow and cookie in chocolate shell)

- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Howie, Laura and Marcus

Scotch Cupcake

Most of the time, I'm not a huge fan of foods that are disguised to look like other foods. It's especially deceptive and sensually displeasing when one of those foods is a dessert. It's like, "I want to eat this giant burger, BUT ALL I TASTE IS F***ING CAKE!!". However, sometimes these things can work and turn out delicious. Case in point, our scotch cupcake. This is a combination of scotch eggs (hard boiled egg encased in sausage meat and breadcrumbs) and cupcakes (rainbows encased in sunshine and happiness). Here's how to make your own scotch cupcakes:




1. Hard boil some eggs. Meanwhile, create your meat mixture. We mixed ground beef with ground sausage and added spices to taste.





2. Peel the eggs and encase in meat. Place in cupcake pan lined with cupcakes wrappers, and bake at 375F.






3. Top with mashed potatoes, and sprinkle with chives. We used a piping bag to get the potatoes to look like icing.




I'm sorry to disappoint the booze enthusiasts out there but you may have noticed that this recipe does not actually contain any alcohol, regardless of the name. You're gonna have to wait until we make vodka muffins or something along those lines.

Not quite sure what some of these are supposed to be