Shepherds Pie with a Twist

With the power out for nearly three days, I had various frozen vegetables that had thawed. Since I couldn't refreeze, I needed to figure out the best way to use the largest number of vegetables possible.

Besides soup (which I made and was AMAZING!), I thought about making a Shepherd's Pie. Typically, I make this dish with ground beef, carrots, corn, peas and top with mashed potatoes.

I had a recipe by Tyler Florence, which I had been wanting to try for a long time. Tyler's recipe used noodles instead of mashed potatoes. Here is the full recipe for Tyler's Macaroni Shepherd's Pie for those interested. I had several modifications and will explain along the way.

I browned 1lb of ground turkey (instead of the 2lb as per recipe) and added my veggies into the meat (instead of layering them on top of the meat.) This is how I would usually heat the veggies when putting mashed potatoes on top.

Along with the turkey, you add 2 cups of chicken broth and flour. I still used the 2 cups even though I reduced the amount of turkey by half. You let this cook until the broth thickens to a gravy consistency.

Along side, cook the noodles. I opted to use flower shaped noodles (instead of elbow macaroni)
since that is what I had on hand. I know this sounds weird, but my kids like shaped pasta, and it transitions well into craft time.

Then, heat 2 cups of chicken broth with a bay leaf and onion (which I omitted because Richard doesn't like onions, and mine went bad during the power outage anyways).

Once the broth has reduced by half, remove the bay leaf add 1 (16 oz) container of ricotta cheese and 2 cups (or 2 big handfuls) of mozzarella cheese and salt and pepper. Stir together until smooth (Tyler said to put in a blender, but I had no onions and opted to dirty a spoon instead).

Then pour the sauce over the noodles and mix well. This was really yummy just by itself. The sauce was super creamy and had the small flavor of broth.

Put the turkey mixture on the bottom of a large casserole dish. Layer the noodles over the top and sprinkle with (1/2 cup) Panko bread crumbs.

This was the finished product....

Everyone loved it! My apologies for no actual photo!

The kids devoured it and thought it was very yummy.

Richard thought it was delicious and had 3 helpings.

He claims it is "One of my favorites now!"

I liked it.

The dish is very mild since turkey really doesn't stand on its own in flavor.

So the pasta and the veggies stand out much more than you could imagine.

Realistically, it is sort of like a hybrid between turkey pot pie and turkey noodle casserole.

I also made bread....

That was a disaster.

Let's not talk about it okay?