Winter is finally rearing it’s chilly head here in Northern California.  With temperatures finally dipping into the 30’s in the early mornings and the need for a jacket even in the afternoons the thought of a warm and comforting meal in the evening becomes less of a fond memory and more of an urgent desire. Baby, it’s cold outside!  Time for some comfort food.

Please note that this is not a recipe for Shepherd’s Pie.  Shepherd’s Pie, by definition uses minced lamb.  Anything else is a cottage pie and cannot technically be called a shepherd’s pie.  Regardless of that factoid (which you may or may not give a hoot about), this dish is full of all the love and goodness that you and your family will be craving throughout the oncoming chilly days and nights of winter. It’s a satisfying, warm and hearty dish that’s just perfect for cozying up around the table with family or friends and some good wine and conversation. (Or stout.  Stout is good here, too!)

Have yourself some meat and mash love this winter.  You deserve it.  It’s comfort food season, so consider this a calorie free meal for a Saturday night and enjoy!  We surely did.

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bake, carrots, comfort food, comfort foods, ground beef, ground pork, Irish cooking, irish cuisine, Potatoes, Recipes

A while back my wife and I decided that if we were going to justify storing our cookbook collection, we needed to make at least one recipe from each book every week.It sounded simple enough, and I happily joined her in browsing through Taste of Home magazine’s Prize winning Recipes (spring 2006), the first of the books on our target list, picking three recipes as we went. Of course, it all went kind of sideways from there.

The recipe in question was for Curried Beef-Stuffed Squash, which looked wonderful at first glance. Unfortunately, my penchant for winging it in the kitchen very quickly led way to a completely new recipe based on the flavors I was craving at the moment. It seems no matter how much I want to follow a recipe, the by the seat of his pants cook in me always takes over, and I never know exactly what the end result will be.

In this case, it was fabulous!

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© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: acorn squash, dinners, ground beef, Recipes, squash