Evolution July - Turkey Herder pie

This month Helen makes Turkey herder pie:

'I promised Mel I’d do the foovolution (sounds like a kylie song!) in July and after trying very hard to come up with something exciting I failed and went for a variation on ‘Sheppard’s pie’ as that is what the ingredients screamed at me. (Can’t help it I’m just not good at savoury, cake I can do but savoury usually get a ‘well it’s edible’ response from he who does the shopping). So ‘Turkey herder pie was made on Saturday with the help (and I use this in the loosest sense of the word) of boy and girl. Mince featured in March and April and made a come back in the form of turkey mince influenced by the fact that I don’t eat mammals (it’s a dissection room thing!). So while the kids ‘cooked’ pasta for mummy’s dinner (e.g. chucked half a pack of dried pasta around the floor with diggers!) I proceeded to create tea. I think most things used have appeared before but this time they have ‘de-volved’ into a simpler form.

• New potatoes (bigish one bort by mistake by he who does the shopping) were cut up and put on to boil in their skins. (I could claim some sort of added fibre benefit but I just couldn’t be bothered to do any peeling!)
• Olive oil put in a pan and diced onion added to soften.
• 1 clove chopped garlic added
• Sliced carrot, courgette and diced yellow pepper and aubergine added. (Boy said yuk to every thing but the carrot and returned to his pasta)
• Pinch or 3 of mixed herbs added (Athenian mix)
• When all veges soft (ish) they were transferred to a waiting dish.
• More olive oil added to pan
• Minced turkey put in pan with 2-3 teaspoons of bisto best chicken. (paper from the bottom of the turkey mince also added as girl was wedging herself between my legs at the time.)
• Paper removed!
• When turkey cooked the veges were returned to the pan
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes and 1 teaspoon of smooth peanut butter were added.
• This was mixed well and put into an oven proof dish.
• When the potatoes were cooked they were drained and mashed with milk and a knob of butter.
• The potatoes were then put on top of the turkey and vege mixture using an ice-cream scoop. (boy will only eat mashed potatoes if they are in ‘scoops’.
• This was covered in cheddar (the mildest and most bland white cheddar available to mankind – boy will only eat this sort!)
• They whole thing was put in the oven (~200 degrees) till the top went brown and it was bubbling
• Served with cranberry ‘red’ jelly.

He who does the shopping said it was quite nice (which is praise indeed). The kids were less impressed, but then anything that isn’t chocolate or spaghetti hoops usually fails to impress them. Girl tried it but started to fling turkey chunks around the room. Boy did eat the cheese covered potato and red jelly. He tried a carrot but pulled the ‘yuk’ face, at least he tried it! I though it was fine. And so on to the next person………'