Recipe - Shepard's Pie

Now that I only eat 500 calories a day, I'm oddly fascinated with cooking for my family using what we have hanging around.  Keeping this in mind, I decided to do something with the Grand's Biscuits we had in the refrigerator.  I came up with this concoction and I think it turned out pretty good (even though I couldn't taste it).

First, I split the biscuit dough into two piles (4 biscuits in each).  Then I rolled out the first pile until it could fit in the bottom of a pie pan (it wasn't that difficult).  Next comes the fun, creative part.  I browned a pound of ground beef and added whatever I could find (and my family would eat).  In our case, that was a can of corn and a can of ranch beans (light pinto beans in a sauce).  I'm sure others would get more creative, with potatoes, onions, peppers, peas or other things I didn't have in my cabinets.

After combining the ground beef with the warmed beans and corn, I put the mixture into the pie pan on top of the rolled crust.  The amount of the beef mixture was higher than the sides of the pie pan, but that was OK.  Next, I rolled out the other pile of biscuit dough and put a "lid" over the top of the pie.  I put small slits around the top so it could vent (and it ended up looking very pretty too).  Here's what it looked like before I put it in the oven:

I used the directions on the biscuits as a guide and baked it for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  It was almost too gorgeous to eat!

I was surprised at how easy this was, but the bigger (and better) surprise was how much my family (especially my kids) liked it.  Even my picky son enjoyed it and ate a good helping of it.  It's not as pretty after it's been cut, but this gives you an idea of the inside ingredients:

 
The best part about this recipe (other than how easy it is) is how you can make it different each time.  You could make a pot pie with chicken with vegetables and a sauce, or a use other vegetables with ground beef.  I guess mine looks a little Southwest, although we're pretty wimpy about spicy.  All together it makes a great hardy family meal and takes less than an hour to prepare.  Enjoy!

cindy