Cold weather is coming, so time for cottage pie!
Our video this week is a little longer (only because there are more steps). Cold weather is coming quickly, so it's time to start looking at heartier and warmer dishes. Here we've got a recipe for cottage pie (or shepherd's pie if you use lamb instead of beef!). We made a couple of potentially controversial changes in this one, first by adding mushrooms, second by covering it in cheese, and third by not adding any kind of gravy. We don't use a super lean ground beef for this recipe, so it tends to hold together okay at the end. It's nice and moist without having to add a gravy, but of course you're welcome to wet your whistle however you like. You can add beer while the and vegetable mixture is cooking, or you can go whole hog and make a nice brown roux to mix with pan drippings and wine (or beer!!). Years ago, I worked as a short order cook in an Irish Pub, and we'd add Guinness to the shepherd's pie.
Anyway, lots of ways to customize. You can change the flavour profile significantly by changing the spice mix you use on the beef at the beginning when it hits the pan, but please do season your meat! If you don't season it when it hits the pan, you may find your final result a little lifeless.
= new reply since forum marked as read
My personal favourite is potato, parsnip, and carrot! We just wanted to do a simple one for the lid on this one 
When my hubby ran his restaurant, he wanted to make a dish of grits and brisket. Now, he comes from Texas, but he's trying to sell this dish in Toronto, Ontario, Canada! Most people had no idea what grits were, or had a pretty poor idea about them. But when they had his grits, full of cream and butter and cheese, and topped with amazing tender brisket and a sunny-side-up egg, most people fell in love
Here's a picture we tweeted when it was the special:
Link to tweet
And we also did it with braised pork belly:
Link to tweet
Sadly, we closed last December, but we have a huge tub of grits from the restaurant, still
I don't know why I didn't think of making my own sausage years ago. Well, one reason is that a fantastic country store down the road makes world renowned sausage and I never thought I could compete with theirs. But even their mild sausage is too hot for me anymore. 
I have been making my own spice blends for ages - what I call sweet curry, rubs for meat, non-hot taco seasoning, five spices, and more. Since we used to sell herbs and spices in our shop, I've always had all the ingredients and the knowledge, just never the time to think of it!