Hatton House Diaries

I have a very domestic next door neighbor. She was raised in the Midwest, and I’m pretty sure she makes dinner for her family every night, in addition to baking yummy treats that she often brings over to share with us. She does this, while bringing up her adorable 10 month old son. She’s the kind of woman I would despise for her “how does she do it” housewifing skills, except for the fact that she is so unbelievably nice and friendly, and she IS a really good baker, so I just try to learn a few things from her.

Today, I went over to her house to check out the new color she’d painted her dining room and she came over to see my newly stained kitchen woodwork. She was amazed at how much I’d gotten done, and I loved her new color, so things were going quite well. Then, I stepped into her kitchen, which, as always, smelled amazing. How does she come up with these endless ideas for tasty food? I mentioned that I had to dispatch two pounds of beef, and she suggested I check out Pinterest. AHA!! That’s how she gets all these ideas! But I didn’t even need to go that far, because something about the smell of her kitchen got me thinking….

We had onions and potatoes left over from the Thrilla in the Skillet, and my husband had left the deep freeze unplugged for three days because he needed the outlet to plug in a router in the basement (more on that later). Two pounds of thawed beef + onions + potatoes on 3/14 equals Pi Day Sheppards Pie! Bonus: I could skip making the peach pie I wanted to assign to my pie wizard husband.

I adapted from Simply Recipes version, and used two pounds beef, two onions, carrots, green beans, and Italian seasoning. I threw in beef bullion (the liquid mush kind) and salt and pepper. I used five potatoes and 2 sticks of butter and added garlic salt to the potatoes. I had enough to make a full size pie, two bowls for my impatient daughter and I, and these four little Staub pots that got their first run tonight. “But Tanya, there are only three little pots?” Yeah, well….we were anxious to sample the baked version. Baked or unbaked, it was delicious beyond expectation.

Back to the husband: There are only two outlets in our basement: one for the deep freeze, one for the chicken coop. In my mind, the chickens will let us know there’s no power on, because the coop will be dark at night. The freezer, on the other hand, will sit without power until I go shopping, which luckily, I did NOT leave for the weekend. By the time I caught it, the top layer had thawed, which meant throwing out some fish that seemed instantly sketchy, and cooking the still cool but no longer frozen beef, and cooking up some turkey sausage. Husband survived, and has promised to wire in a few more outlets. And make me a pie.