Sunday, January 20, 2008

Food TV Cooking Club - Cottage Pie

Part of my more resolution was to take part in more food events, and another favorite of mine is the Foodtv.ca Cooking Club. This month Catherine chose Cottage Pie from Anthony Sedlak, host of The Main.

Anthony Sedlak was one of the finalists in the Superstar Chef Challenge on Food Network Canada. I've never seen that show, but I am a huge fan of The Main. It's my favorite show on Food TV right now. I love the food and I think Anthony Sedlak is a fantastic host. So yay! Excellent choice this month.


As much as I love this sort of dish, I felt the recipe was a little to heavy on the oil, butter, cream etc. for me right now. So I made some changes:
I didn't add any oil to the pan to cook the ground beef.
I cut back to 1 TB of oil to cook the vegetables.
I used 2 TB of butter in the mashed potatos instead of 1/3 cup.
I used non fat milk instead of cream in the potatos.
I omitted the Parmesan cheese in the potatos.
In the assembly, I omitted the butter and bread crumbs, but did sprinkle the top with Parmesan cheese.

It may not have been as rich as the original recipe intended, but it was fabulous. It's a tough call, but it might be even better than my shepherd's pie.

Recipe: Cottage Pie

9 comments:

Peabody said...

This does sound good, though I would be going the full fat version. I think you picked our Tuesday night dinner.

Sara said...

It's really great Peabody, the red wine and the cheese are excellent additions.

breadchick said...

I love cottage pie! Actually I love anything with mashed potatoes on top of it....

Sara said...

What isn't made better with mashed potatos on top? Other than desserts....

Brilynn said...

It's good to hear this dish could be made without the full fat, although I'd probably do something silly like reduce the fat but add bacon... I still have hopes of participating in this month's cooking club, but so far it hasn't happened.

Deborah said...

I'm adding this to the "to-make" list!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

The photo looks full fat here Sara! I'd go for your reduced fat any day. Looks wonderful.

Lis said...

Okay first off.. that looks SO GOOD. I think I'm with Gracie.. although it's too late for Tuesday night dinner, I'm thinking Thursday night.

Secondly, love the cutting board underneath!

Thirdly.. what's the difference between cottage pie and shepards pie? They look/sound almost identical to me?

Hugs!
xoxoxoxox

Annie said...

Sounds and looks yummy!