In honor of the 'royal' wedding.

Okay, so I have enjoyed watching the royal wedding highlights, especially the clothes.  No, I didn't like seeing all the coverage coming up to the event, but I loved watching what everyone was wearing, especially Kate's two dresses and Pippas Dress!  They are young and modern and took the dowdy royals to a new era, thankfully. 
In honor of this fun occasion (all weddings are fun and exciting when you  believe it is done in a union of love), Dad cooked 'fish and chips' for dinner.  Although we were a bit lazy and our chips were 'baked' potato chips from a bag.  Plus I could fit it in weight watchers, (yes one piece of fried fish is workable).  In all this hoopla, I saw a chef on Oprah that had worked in Buckingham and Kensington Palaces and now has a cookbook out.  As only Oprah can do, she had 4 or 5 of his recipes on her web sight.  So today I decided to cook "Cottage Pie" or as I remember in Ireland it was called "Shephards Pie" I believe Shephards Pie is really made with lamb, but I don't like lamb, so I'm guessing that is the difference between the two.  Some places we ate had great pies, with ground beef or small chunks of I am guessing stew beef in a great gravy, others had some awful dishes, basically cooked up ground beef with mashed potatoes on top, no gravy and no flavoring.  I could always taste Worcestershire in the sauce, but couldn't figure out the rest of the ingredients (in the places that used a sauce), and this chef had all his ingredients and it was FABULOUS!!! 

So here is his version of Cottage Pie with a picture from the top of my 'piped' potatoes (before it was cooked)...I had too many and had to keep piping to fill it all up, and my picture doesn't have the lucious cheese on top.
Here are my changes to make it 'lower fat.'
1. Cook the ground beef, then drain it, save the broth and put it in the fridge, when it cools skim off the fat and then add the defatted broth back to the beef.
2. Use olive oil.
3. For the potatoes, use low fat margarine and olive oil for the butter and skim or low fat milk for cream.
4. Use low fat cheddar cheese in place of regular cheddar cheese.
We didn't notice any 'losses' in the pie, it was excellent.  I also found four servings way to large, we would put it more as six servings.

Cottage Pie
Recipe created by Darren McGrady
Oprah.com
April 28, 2011
Recipe created by Darren McGradyAccording to former royal chef Darren McGrady, this cottage pie is Prince William's all-time favorite entrée.
Servings: Serves 4

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. corn oil

2 small (6 ounces each) yellow onions , finely chopped

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 to 2 tsp. dried thyme , according to your taste

2 cups water

1 Tbsp. Kitchen Bouquet browning and seasoning sauce

2 beef bouillon cubes

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

2 pounds peeled red potatoes

2 ounces (1/2 stick) butter

2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. ground white pepper

1/8 tsp. grated nutmeg

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 cup grated Cheddar cheese

Directions
To make beef base: In a large saucepan over a high flame, heat the oil and add the finely chopped onion. Sauté until the onion becomes soft and translucent. Add the ground beef and break it up using a wooden spoon. Sauté until the beef has lost all its pink color. Gradually stir in the flour, thyme, 2 cups water, Kitchen Bouquet seasoning, beef bouillon cubes and Worcestershire sauce.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer the meat (so that it is just bubbling) for about 30 to 45 minutes until the sauce has thickened and the meat is fork tender. Remove the pan from the stove, and use a slotted spoon to transfer the beef to the earthenware dish. The slotted spoon will lift just the beef so it will not be too wet to hold the potatoes.
If there is any sauce left after taking out the meat, cool and refrigerate it. Then reheat it in a small saucepan to serve alongside the finished pie. This recipe can be prepared up to this stage several days before you plan to serve the dish. Cool both the meat and the liquid and store in the refrigerator.
To make potato topping: Place the potatoes in a large pot and add cold water to about 1 inch above the potatoes. Cover the pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender when pricked with a fork (about 20 minutes). Drain off the water and replace the drained potatoes in the pan over a low heat for 1 to 2 minutes to dry them thoroughly. Mash the potatoes with a potato masher or pass through a ricer.
Stir the nutmeg, cream and egg yolk with the butter, salt and pepper into the mashed potatoes. Then use the mashed potatoes to cover the top of the dish. Either pipe them, using a wide star tube, or spoon them on and then fluff up using a fork.
Sprinkle the top of the potatoes with the grated Cheddar. It can be kept for 24 hours at this stage if covered with plastic wrap.
Bake in a preheated oven (350°) for about 20 to 30 minutes until the potatoes are golden brown and the pie has heated through.

THUMBS DOWN

Life is full of lessons, even at almost 60. One should not try to hand wash a very sharp thin blade fillet knife when one is tired and not wearing glasses. Reading glasses I may add, but they do help see those sharp thin blades clearly. Deep one and a half inch laceration in the "pulp" of my right thumb. Yes, RIGHT thumb nonetheless, not the left in a right-handed guy. Good thing the cut not on either side of the thumb; lots of blood vessels and tendons would have been history.
Stubborn physician I am, a trip into Rapid City to get it stitched was not high on the protity list. Two juicy rib eye steaks and red charcoals on the grill were. Good thing I have an excellent nurse nearby. Grab the first aid box, soak in iodine solution for a few minutes, wrap bandages and waterproof tape and elevate. I have suture material in the box, but how does one suture with one hand-I have not mastered the skill.  
The pain is better, Severed nerve fibers scream back at you for the first 24-36 hours. In the absence of stitches, the wound oozes healing bloody fluid into the bandage. It's healing.
I'm glad I had my prorities straight 2 nights ago! JIR

LIVING IN THE BOONIES

This is not a story about a black sheep, but about a white calf. It's actually a story about experiencing Spring out in the country which is where we live, or in the boonies as my sister prefers to call it. You can't help but experience it, it's all around you; you can't avoid it. Robins and meadowlarks are here, and that is always a good sign.

Every morning on my way to work I drive by this small ranch with about 50 head (of cattle for those of you city slickers). I have watched pot-bellied dark colored cows skim down as new calves appear in the humid frosty morning mist. Placidly inactive and weak-legged at first, the youngsters soon turn into playful little munchkins, who alternate between sucking on engorged tits and horseplay, or should we call it calfplay.  It must have been 3 weeks ago when I had to slow down in order not to miss the curve as I was distracted by a strange sight within this bovine sea of black. Of all the dark-colored cows and offspring, a white calf with brown face and lower legs dominated the landscape. I asked myself, I wonder how it feels to be the white calf of the family. Maybe not as bad as the black sheep?  Over the last 3 weeks I have been reassured this calf does not feel different or strange among her kind. She has been playing with her darker playmates who seem to have accepted her as one of their own. She seems to have had a full and healthy adjustment to her new life. If only we could learn some lessons from those species who we consider lower in the chain.

Crab apple branch budding

Bulbs sprouting from the ground

More Spring to come...JIR

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Undoubtedly, you have seen the blog post about the warm Spring day we enjoyed yesterday. Well, Old Man Winter won today. Yes, that is white stuff blowing horizontally at about 35MPH in front of our house.

The snow shower was short-lived and did not stick, except in the shady corner by our front door where our Welcome Moose seems to be saying in unison with us: "I'm sick and tired of this shit!" JIR

HAPPY HOUR

Jake is a great dog. He is also very smart and has come to understand that if he does not eat his food, he will not get treats when Mom and I have a few snacks before dinner. True to his hound dog heritage, the drool that collects and pours out of his huge upper lips is of enormous volumes. Just before I snapped this picture, a much bigger elastic strand of drool, at least 3inches in length, sucumbed the force of gravity and plummeted to the patio floor. JIR

FINALLY

We know better than to claim victory over old man (or woman) Winter this early in Spring. But if we haven't won the war, we won the battle today. Yes indeed, the thermometer reads 71 degrees outside, and 67 inside, at almost 6PM today. We can dig it...

...and we sure did! (Notice the sweatshirts, just in case an unexpected temperature drop blows in while we are sitting outside) JIR