Shepherds pie 'inspired'...

In thinking about what to make for dinner...Aubrey and I left for the grocery store; list in hand!  I thought of a crazy idea of doing a shepherds pie inspired by East Indian flavours; curry, orange, coconut milk, ginger, garlic etc....

This is what I came up with....

I first peeled my carrots and sweet potato and chopped them to be boiled. Covered with cold water and brought them to boil.

While I was waiting for this to boil....in another pot I put a little olive oil and brought it to Med-high heat and sautéed my ground turkey.  To this I added diced onion, celery, chopped garlic and grated fresh ginger, cilantro (i used paste because i had it but i would normally use fresh....fresh is usually best!) orange zest and a bit of the juice. I added curry powder, salt and pepper.

(I keep my fresh ginger in the freezer, to always have it on hand....it grates super easy when frozen!)

The last little nub if ginger I threw into the boiling sweet potato carrot mixture along with the orange. I find that is what I do....figure out things as I go....building flavour along the way!

At this point I decide I need to bulk this up because I am having 2 extra people for dinner.  So I drained and rinse a can of chickpeas and threw then in! Improvise!

Corn I had in the fridge....

For the sauce I used coconut milk 1&1/2 cans

Taste and season more if needed....it needed salt!

A little more orange...

Now at this point I realized it was tooooo thin.  So I mix a tablespoon of cornstarch with a bit if water until smooth and stirred that in. As it simmered it thickened.

I felt like if needed colour so I decided to add diced red pepper and frozen peas.  When I added these I removed it from the heat. 

So now that is done and I just need to make the potato topping....

Remove the ginger and orange.

Not trying to use my food processor I thought I could mix this by hand; it was way too chunky so I threw it into my trusty food processor!  

No joke when I invited my family for dinner I said "i'm creating a new dish..." they said," it'll be fine just don't blitz it!"

I tend to blitz anything and everything...many times to my culinary demise!

But in this case it was necessary.....

Much better....added a little cilantro, butter, remaining 1/2 can coconut milk and salt to bring out the flavour

Baked it on 375F for 35 minutes....until it was heated all the way through.

Final product...a little crazy looking... But I promised to show you the good, bad and the ugly...

So the reviews are in....

I should of thickened the filling more.  It was a hard call....there is a fine line. I would say it needed to almost be the thickness of the mixture before i added the coconut milk...i could of maybe added just half of one can instead.

But everyone said it was a very tasty "stew"!

So welcome to my world....I win some; i loose some in the kitchen but with a table full of my family how could I really loose? We shared a meal together; with great conversation and a lot of laughs.  Always a joy to cook for them!

Oh and Aubrey ate her plate clean....so 1 point for mommy!