A Healthier Version of Shepherd's Pie

I'm of Irish descent, so my love for Shepherd's Pie is genetically imprinted in me. Now I've never had a problem with the way it was made until I gave up red meat. After I gave up red meat, it bothered me that I could no longer have one of my favorite dishes. Finally I decided on the best way for me to deal with my problem. The following recipe is the answer to that problem.

Step 1: Buy a half-pound of ground turkey. This is to replace the other meat, usually ground beef, that is in the recipe. Now you're going to have to brown the ground turkey before you add it to the dish you're going to cook your pie in. Instead of using vegetable oil, which has a high fat content, use a low-fat, olive oil based cooking spray to grease the frying fan. Now since this is turkey, you have to do more than just brown the meat, it has to basically be cooked thoroughly. Once you've browned it, drain any excess oil out of the pan and set the meat aside until you need it.

Step 2: You'll need mashed potatoes for this step. The mashed potatoes will probably be the fattiest part of this recipe. I choose not to make my own at home because my local grocer has one called Diner's Choice that isn't instant mashed potatoes. They're not even frozen. They're real mashed potatoes that are already made up and they're fat content is lower. Since they're not frozen, you can just use them right away. I buy the garlic flavored just for the extra flavoring. The package will recommend that you add butter to the mashed potatoes, but don't, it cuts out some more fat. Now take a glass bread loaf pan and spoon in the mashed potatoes and cover the whole bottom of the pan.

Step 3: You'll need Cream of Chicken soup here. It's just easy to buy Campbell's condensed version, because Cream of Chicken soup is hard to make on your own. Now don't dilute the soup, you need it to remain thick. Now take the browned turkey meat and put it on top of the layer of mashed potatoes, make sure you do this evenly, you don't want a clump of meat only in the middle. Now take the Cream of Chicken soup and pour it over the top of the turkey meat and mashed potatoes. The cream of chicken soup acts like the gravy would in a traditional Shepherd's Pie recipe. It keeps the meat moist while adding some extra flavoring.

Step 4: You'll need a vegetable of your choice here and some shredded cheese. Now I've seen a lot of different kinds of vegetables used for Shepherd's Pie, but the most traditional is corn. Just get yourself some corn (either take it directly off the ear or use frozen corn, both the freshest ways to do this) and layer it on top of the mashed potatoes, ground turkey and cream of chicken soup. Now all you have to do is top it with a shredded cheese, preferrably cheddar. The best one to use is Sargento, because it's not as fatty as others and tastes better.

Now all you'll have to do is pop this into your over at 375 degrees and cook until the cheese is melted and a little brown on top. It really even tastes better than the traditional Shepherd's Pie. Feel free to experiment with this recipe yourself, because that's how I came up with it. Be careful though, it's easy to screw up and get something even the dog wouldn't eat.