Shepherd's Pie

It is standard that my family go out to eat on Friday and Saturday nights.  Since the Whole30 makes going out to eat a little tricky, I knew I had to make Friday night dinner at home something special.  Seeing as though I worked this past Friday, a nice dinner would involve some prep! 

*Cue the Shepherd's Pie!*

So on Thursday, I prepped a Shepherd's Pie.  I used to make a vegetarian version of this, so making a Whole30 version would be super easy!  Since I have doing a lot of research on the Whole30, I have stumbled across the blog The Whole Smiths.  I found this particular recipe and decided to try it.  I did make a few changes, nothing too dramatic, and it was more out of necessity of things I had on hand.

Onto the cooking!

While baby bella mushrooms sautéed in ghee, I chopped carrots, onions, and asparagus.

Once the mushrooms were done, I removed them from the pan and added the asparagus and some dried thyme to sauté until they were crisp-tender.

While this is going on I am also making mashed potatoes.  I boil the potatoes, drain, and mash.  I then add salt, pepper, and some ghee.  This Trader Joe's ghee is quickly becoming a delicious staple to my Whole30 lifestyle.

In my Dutch Oven, I begin to cook the carrots and onions until the onions become translucent.  I then add three garlic cloves minced and cook for another 2 minutes.  The veggies are all moved to one side of the pot and I add the ground beef.  The ground beef is cooked until browned.

Once the ground beef is cooked, I mix everything in the Dutch oven.  I then added arrow root powder and horseradish.  After that is well mixed, I then add vegetable broth and tomato paste.  I salt and pepper to taste and let it cook until thickened for about 15 minutes. 

After everything has thickened I add the asparagus into the meat mixture.

The meat mixture is then transferred into a baking dish and topped with the baby bella mushrooms (you forgot about those didn't you!)

Finally I spread the mashed potatoes over the mushrooms and viola!  We have a shepherd's pie ready for the oven!  At this point I covered the pie with wrap and put it in the fridge for the next day.  We cooked ours for 35 min in a 375 degree oven. 

This meal was delicious!  Even Ronnie ate it (minus the asparagus, he picked all of those out).  Matt was very happy with the meal too.  We also had plenty of leftovers for work lunch this upcoming week! 

This is a great meal for everyone, and I highly recommend it!

Today is my fifth day on the Whole30.  It's been going great!  The second day was rough, but I think that also had to do with the fact that Cincinnati's poor sinus weather was in full effect and I had the worst headache.  There was a couple of points yesterday that I was tempted by cookies and chocolate covered pretzels that someone brought into work.  But I resisted and went along the day just fine.  I would have LOVED to have a few drinks after work yesterday.  But honestly, I was so tired after working close to 14 hours, by the time I came home, I didn't even care anymore.

Since it's the weekend, I'll be doing more prepping for the week ahead.  I also plan to post a run-down of my first week including recipes.  Stay tuned!