Tonight we decided to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by making Shepherd’s Pie (which seems Irish) and spinach salad (which is green).

The first step in making shepherd’s pie is to start the mashed potatoes for the topping.  So that means peeling 6 potatoes (about 1-1/2 pounds), cutting them into hunks and putting them in water to cook.  Once that’s done, it’s time to chop 1 onion, 2 carrots,  2 gloves of garlic and 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme. Once everything is chopped, sautee the onions and carrots for 5 minutes (or until soft), and then add the garlic.

Then it’s time to add 2 pounds of ground lamb and cook until no pink shows.  At this point, I recommend spooning out some of the extra fat (see photo of how much there is); otherwise your lamb filling may taste sort of greasy.  We scooped out almost 1/2 cup of extra oil/fat.  Then you can add tomato paste, red wine (or chicken broth) and the thyme.  Let the lamb mix simmer on low while you drain and mash the potatoes (mash them with butter, salt and pepper just like you would if you were going to eat them right then

Now it’s time to put it all together.  First you put the lamb mix into a baking pan, then its time to put the mashed potatos on top.  You can just scoop them on and spread them but we decided to be “fancy”.  We decided to put them in a pastry bag and pipe them on top of the lamb mix. Then into the oven to brown.

While the potatoes were browning, we made a spinach salad (with tomatoes, avocado and bacon).  All delicious.