Freestyle Friday

One of my favorite shows on Food Network, and quite possibly one of my favorite shows of all time, is Chopped. If you're not familiar with the show, there are four contestants and each have a basket filled with secret ingredients. They are required to make an appetizer, entree and dessert course, and each round someone gets eliminated. It's super suspenseful and super entertaining and I just can't get enough of it. If you are just as excited as I am now, you can watch Chopped every Tuesday night at 10 PM on the Food Network! ( I should be their spokesperson). 

Elise's Shepard's Pie

Anyway, Tuesday night, Scott and I got to have a Chopped of our own...at least I felt that way. Being two college students on a limited budget, with a limited pantry, we put our heads together and came up with a pretty delicious end result. Our "secret" ingredients that night were instant mashed potatoes, ground sausage, a frozen bag of veggies, and croutons. With those ingredients we came up with one delicious Shepard's pie! 

Shepard's pie is usually a layer of meat and vegetables and a layer of creamy mashed potatoes, but I was assigned the position of sous chef Tuesday evening, so the creation of our dinner was up to Scott. I was assigned crust duty. Here is an easy Shepard's pie recipe you can follow, but basically, if you have the four ingredients I mentioned earlier, you're good to go! 

Here are the five simple steps Scott and I stuck to:

• Heat the ground meat and vegetables through to a golden brown.
• Prepare instant mashed potatoes according to package. 
• Spoon everything into a greased baking dish (you don't need pretty layers).
• Crush and season croutons, and sprinkle on top of mixture.
• Bake for about 10-15 min on 350. (We cut the time in half because everything was basically cooked already)

Me and Scott's Shepard pie

Shepard's pie and Garlic bread

My helpful tip to you, don't drink and make a crouton crumble at the same time! If you're like me, you'll absentmindedly add salt, garlic salt, and bacon bits to the mixture because you're too preoccupied with the way your Shocktop Raspberry Wheat beer tastes. SODIUM OVERLOAD!

Do you have any spur of the moment, out of the box recipes that you're proud of? Do you have any "Chopped" moments?