{"id":6442,"date":"2011-11-23T12:07:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T20:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/?p=6442"},"modified":"2011-11-23T12:07:32","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T20:07:32","slug":"signature-cafe-brand-shepherds-pie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=6442","title":{"rendered":"Signature Cafe Brand Shepherd’s Pie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’m not really sure if Shepherd’s pie <\/a>is a regional favorite in the US, I certainly didn’t know about it growing up in casserole central – Minnesota.\u00a0 I did become aware of it, fond of it, living in London in the 90s.<\/p>\n

For the unaware, classic Shepherd’s pie is a “hot dish” – basically a “meat pie” with a crust of mashed potatoes.\u00a0 Different recipes\/variations cal for the addition of vegetables, typically peas and \/ or carrots, stirred into a minced (ground) beef mixture.\u00a0 The mashed potatoes are placed on top, and the dish is baked.<\/p>\n

You might have been served this concoction under different names, like “cottage pie.”\u00a0 In different regions of the UK, you might find a meat other than beef; lamb is one example.<\/p>\n

Point being, at sometime this dish has entered mainstream US cuisine, or at least enough so that there is a Safeway store brand available in the ‘heat and eat’ section, next to other products of the same ilk – mashed potatoes, or mac n cheese.<\/p>\n

Safeway’s <\/a>version has minced beef, brown gavy, carrots, onions, and green beans, with a “golden potato and cheese crust.”\u00a0\u00a0 It comes in a package of nearly two pounds, and thus is a great value for a ‘balanced’ meal at less than $3.00 per pound.<\/p>\n

The box claims you can get four servings from this entree.\u00a0 Well, two if you are at our house.<\/p>\n

The product is made by Lucerne Foods <\/a>of California for the Safeway chain.<\/p>\n

As always with these kind of “home tests”, I opted for conventional oven heating as opposed to the microwave prep.\u00a0 The only discernable difference ot me is that conventional method takes about 6x longer than the microwave.\u00a0 I could have expermented with a few minutes under the broiler to see if I could get the crust to “crust up”, but I didn’t.<\/p>\n

We liked the product.\u00a0 The flavor was good and the different ingredients were obvious.\u00a0 The mashed potatoes, like most frozen mash, are a little less firm that home made potatoes, but the texture was not enough to put me off the product.<\/p>\n

A hot, well-rounded meal in a few minutes, at a good price.\u00a0 What more can we ask for these days?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Safeway Brand Shepherd's Pie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I’m not really sure if Shepherd’s pie is a regional favorite in the US, I certainly didn’t know about it growing up in casserole central – Minnesota.\u00a0 I did become aware of it, fond of it, living in London in the 90s. For the unaware, classic Shepherd’s pie is a “hot dish” – basically a… Continue reading Signature Cafe Brand Shepherd’s Pie<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,34,35],"tags":[1288,1494,3183],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}