Recipe: How To Keep A Magician Fed For Days

Although magicians don’t always share secrets with their audience, I’m going to let you in on a recipe for Shepherd’s Pie that you’ll want to tell everyone about!

We lead busy lives and if you’re a professional magician, the last thing you want is to fumble while dazzling your audience with a card trick or feeling fuzzy-minded performing a spectacular illusion. It takes passion for the craft, skill and countless hours of practice to perfect the art of magic.  Trust me, I know, as I have been with my magical man for almost a decade now.

Creating balanced meals that will fuel your body is important and so this is the version I do. It’s healthy, fairly simple to make and lasts for several days in the fridge. Of course,  you can tweak it to meet your culinary tastes and dietary requirements.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4-5 medium potatoes, peeled or unpeeled (whatever you like) and then quartered with a knife. 

• 2 cups (or more!) of assorted vegetables—I use a standard frozen vegetable mix often, as it’s more cost effective. You can use fresh veggies, but you will need to saute those separately in another pan.

• 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef, pork, turkey, veal, or chicken. Whatever is on sale, that’s the meat of choice for this dish. *Vegetarians/Vegans – you can of course use veggie/vegan meat replacement and just follow the instructions as you normally would to cook it.

• Seasonings of choice. Ex. oregano, basil, garlic, curry, turmeric, chives, parsley, sage, etc...

WHAT TO DO:

1 Boil the potatoes: Place washed, peeled (or unpeeled, if you like the skin on) and quartered potatoes in a large pot and cover with enough water.  Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until tender (about 20 minutes). Use a timer.

2.  In a frying pan, add your meat of choice and cook it up (you don’t want to see ANY pink my non-veggie friends!) Make sure to add whatever sauce and seasonings you want.

3. Revisit your mash potatoes. Use a fork to pierce for tenderness. You want them nice and soft so they will be easy to mash. When the potatoes are done cooking, remove them from the pot, drain the water, and place them into a bowl. Add butter or margarine, any seasonings of choice, and then mash away with a fork or potato masher until they are the consistency you want.  Set aside.

4. Preheat your oven to 400°F.  Wait for that oven beeeeeeeeep!

5.  Get out a large baking casserole dish (approx 8 x13), and pour the meat mixture on the bottom. Add a heaping amount of frozen veggies or your mixture of sauteed vegetables. Then spread the mashed potatoes evenly on top.  *Feel free to grate your favourite cheese or cheese alternative, if you’re looking for a richer cheesy potato flavour once it finishes cooking.

6. Bake in the oven and cook for approximately 30 minutes. I like to set my oven to broil for the last few minutes to get the potatoes a little extra brown.

7. Take out the dish WITH oven mitts and let cool down for a couple minutes. Cut into pieces and serve!

Straight out of the oven!