Chicken Shepherd's Pie

I had picked up a rotisserie chicken on sale the other day and so needed to think of something different I could use some shredded chicken in. I was really craving some old-fashioned creamy mashed potatoes and I ran across a new recipe for Chicken Shepherd's Pie on allrecipes.com.

This recipe serves 6.

8 potatoes

1/4 cup butter

2/3 cup milk

1 medium head roasted garlic

1 pound cooked, shredded chicken breast meat

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 Tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

1 Tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

1/2 cup red bell pepper, diced

1 cup fresh corn kernels

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Peel, chop, and boil potatoes until tender. Drain, then mash potatoes. Add butter, milk, and roasted garlic and mix in. Set aside.

Arrange chicken evenly in the bottom of a casserole dish, then sprinkle with spices, then layer peppers, corn, and all but 1/4 cup cheese. Spread mashed potatoes on top. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until brown around edges.

OK, NOW......let me tell you what I did! First, since it was just the two of us and this was a new recipe, I might not want tons of leftovers. So I figured I'd half the recipe and use a small casserole dish (7 x 5 1/2 x 2"). For the mashed potatoes, I used butter, cream cheese, and skim milk.

The outcome was just ok. Tasty, hit the spot, but needed some tweaking, I thought. That was the first day. The leftovers the second day were much better. So this is what I'll do next time.

Since the recipe calls for chicken breast meat, I'd add just a tad of chicken stock to the bottom of the dish, and maybe add a bit of dark meat just to add some moisture. DO NOT cut back on the fresh herbs.....this absolutely makes the dish! I think I might add some chopped, slightly cooked (crisp-tender) broccoli and probably bump up the amount of red pepper and corn. And DO NOT used reduced-fat cheese. This needs that fat to really flavor the dish.

I also did an on-line search for microwave roasted garlic since I really didn't want to heat up my kitchen to roast one head of garlic at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. Generally if I'm going to cook something at a high head for a certain amount of time, I'll roast some garlic at the same time, but I didn't have any extra on hand. The microwave version worked just fine. And it only took a few minutes.

I think I would make this ahead of time, either the day before or that morning. I think I would bake it for 20-25 minutes (covered, a bit longer if making the full recipe) without the top layer of cheese. A few hours before serving, I'd put it out to come to room temperature, then bake again at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until hot throughout. Top with remaining cheddar cheese and then broil (watch closely!) until the cheese is melted.

I basically cut in half all the ingredients for the pie and it made 3 nice servings. I scooped the mashed potatoes into a ziploc bag, cut a tip off of the corner, and "squirted" little bumps of potatoes on top of the casserole (sorry, you can't tell from the photo). It really looked nice. I had some steamed asparagus and carrots as side dishes.