Sweet Potato Cottage Pie

Alright. Every time I say "it wasn't my fault" or a recipe contains, red meat, butter or cheese, you, the imaginary reader should have a drink. Drink a long with Rachael.

I had intended to make a vegetarian shepherd's pie with green lentils and sweet potato mash from using a combination of this recipe, and this one. I really liked the look of the first ones, but it uses canned lentils and canned tomatoes. The second recipe had everything fresh, but it didn't look quite as good, and I wasn't into the sweetcorn. I wrote out both ingredients lists and headed home from work a little early to the supermarket. I went to the particular supermarket which is good at pulses and grains and fresh produce and  got everything I needed really cheap, except the lentils, they had a whole aisle of lentils and mung beans and black beans and soy beans, but none of the green lentils that I needed. They also didn't have the vegetable stock. It was as if the universe had decided that lentils were a bad idea. It was not my fault (you should drink).

I wandered around a bit confused, I still have the crappy phone with no internet so I couldn't browse alternative recipes on the fly. I did notice, in my wanderings that they had low sodium beef stick for only $1, and there was a manager's special on minced (ground) beef. I got a whole ground cow for $2.50. It was as if the Universe was calling to me. It was saying "Rachael, you should cook with beef". The Universe is very persuasive. Lentils were out and beef was back on the menu (drink).

I came home and peeled and chopped my sweet potatoes and got them boiling. I browned some meat, and added 2 chopped onions and 2 large sliced carrots. I let this all fry together until the onions and carrots were starting to get soft. I then added a little bit of white flour and stirred it until it became pretty thick, and added the beef broth until sauce was a good consistency (really, it was still pretty runny, but I was scared to add more flour at this stage as in case in went lumpy). I then added four chopped plum tomatoes and some tomato puree. The recipe asked for thyme, but I didn't have any, so I used oregano. I also added a little Worcestershire sauce and lots black pepper. I let it all bubble together until it all looked like happiness, and then poured it into a casserole dish and added my sweet potatoes, which I mashed with butter (drink).  I covered the whole thing in grated Red Leicester cheese (drink).

It looked like this:

Sweet Potato Cottage Pie

I really liked it, but I'm going to admit, it was a little bland. I guess I should have used garlic, but we'd run out at home so I didn't have any. Also, I thought there were a lot of ingredients already so I should leave it out for once. I didn't add any salt, so that might have been the problem. I almost never add salt to my cooking, a throw back from when my boy was a baby and salt was out of the question. There other potential issue is that there was so much beef that these ingredients made enough for two whole pies. I've got the leftovers in the fridge for another day. This means that, when adding the oregano and the Worcestershire sauce, I possibly was not using enough for the amount of beef that I had. It was still really good, and I would definitely make it again, but it lacked a little something.