1 Zoom

I keep suggesting that one way to live the NH green lifestyle is to cook our own food, using whole, 'real' ingredients and a bit of sense. So here's a quick example: tonight's shepherd's pie.

I put some hamburger in the wok with onions, basil, salt, oregano and garlic.

My daughter washed and cut potatoes, and we put them on to boil. When the hamburger was cooked, I scooped it out and spread it in the bottom of a baking dish and layered a can of corn over that, after draining the corn into something else we were making. Then we sliced up some sharp cheddar cheese.

When the potatoes were tender, I drained them into the current pot of soup. I usually have some sort of soup on the back of the stove that I can add bits and leftovers to, so they're not wasted.

I added salt and pepper and half a stick of butter and mashed the potatoes with an electric hand-mixer on low. I don't even own a potato masher. I gave it away because I never use it. The hand-mixer works so much better. When the potatoes were mashed, I turned the mixer up to high to break up the skins. If we had taken the time to cut up the potatoes into tiny pieces before cooking, the skins would have been virtually undetectable once the mixer was through with them.

I layered some of the potato (as much as I could fit) on top of the corn, then covered the top with the cheese. Normally I melt the cheese into the hot potatoes as I 'mash' them, but this time I decided to do it this way.

I left the whole thing in the cold oven, and my mother baked it when she made her meatloaf. I guess it's like carpooling for entrees.