Part two: Because I didn't actually write about the meat pies.

I am married to an omnivore who likes meat. Who really, really likes meat. I like umami flavors too, but right now, if I jump in and have a meat dish, I'll inevitably encounter a vein, or a bit of crunched up bone, and then my gag reflex will flip out, like I AM EATING BODY PARTS?!?!?!? A total Charlton Heston Soylent Green moment, except that I eat soy all the time, because it's obviously not made out of people. Soybeans are beans. You can buy them, you can eat them, you can see for yourself.

But we had a pound of ground beef ready to go, which I wanted to stretch out into multiple meals by pairing it with flour and vegetables. And meat pies are the best meat dishes anyway, as far as I'm concerned.

I totally just made this one up as I went along, because I rock the fuck out of ground beef pie filling. It's my THING. I am going to apply these skills to a vegetarian experiment, to see if I can pull it off. But in the meat version, I am already a champ.

I bought some store-brand pie dough because FUCK NO, I AIN'T MAKING PIE CRUST FROM SCRATCH!!!! 

For the pie filling, I chopped a medium-sized yellow onion, so that each little flake of onion (you know what I mean?) was a little smaller than a postage stamp. I cooked the onions and browned the beef at the same time, in a pan greased with canola oil. I threw in a big handful of flour--Jesus, was it really a cup? it couldn't have been a cup. Maaaaaybe it was a cup--and splashed a bit of water and a bit of Sleighr dark ale in there.

Sorry if you're a bit squeamish about blasphemy done in the name of heavy metal, but come on. I have to illustrate the Slayer/Sleighr thing, because it's funny:

Please don't get weird about the clash of Christmas imagery going on in this photo. I am not waging war on Christmas, I am waging war on the absence of jokes about thrash metal. You can get squeamish about Slayer's discography and/or imagery, though. Go for it. As far as I know, the band is not anti-people, even though they write about people who are anti-people. They covered a Minor Threat song, and Minor Threat come from approximately the same scene as Bad Brains, and Bad Brains rule. This is what I tell myself. But on the thrash metal safe side, there's always good ole Metallica, whose (trivia time!) drummer married the Harvard Skylar who inspired the love interest in Good Will Hunting, because they were all going to school together at the time. So, how 'bout them apples? (You can argue that Metallica sucks, but I'll ignore you, because their therapy documentary is what first inspired me to consider a career as a therapist, and they weren't actually wrong in their prediction about the impact of music piracy on the music industry. And come on! Who can stay mad at anything ever, after thinking about Kirk Hammett? He's not only one of the best guitarists in the world, but he's Buddhist and vegetarian, and that brings us right back to talking about food again.)

ANYWAY! 

I only used a little bit of dark beer in the recipe, because I didn't want to overwhelm the other flavors.

I threw in a good amount of minced, fresh thyme from the garden:

That's gotta be, like, 2 1/2 tablespoons? Whatever it looks like in the picture. That's not a small knife.

But the real trick here, is again, Worcestershire sauce. Also just enough yellow mustard to give it that flavor that I think of as being very English, and that probably is very English? It's what I tell myself. I also used soy sauce. I used salt. I used the pepper grinder to grind some peppercorns. I forget what else I did. Did I already say "flour," already? Because I think that I already did, already. Already. But who has the time to scroll up and proofread?!? Ugh. So tired.

Here is an unflattering photo of the pie filling, which I swear is/was amazing:

It wasn't that beige in real life.

Now, while the pie filling is squarely within my comfort zone, this was the first time that I'd actually made little mini pies. So I felt a little lost when working with the pie dough. I remembered to coat them with a little bit of oil, and I oiled the aluminum on the baking sheet.

Behold, the bottom of the learning curve!!!

Behold, they came out very pretty, anyway!!!

They are also pretty when viewed under glass, from inside of a cute casserole dish!!!

AAARGG SO PRETTY

The leftover pie filling was used to make a shepherd's pie, because, obviously. Here it is, in the oven, with the red oven could still visible in the background.

The mashed potatoes were little red ones. I used heavy cream instead of milk and butter in the mashed potatoes, and I ate a lot of extra mashed potatoes while this cooked. The cheese on top is Tillamook vintage extra-sharp white cheddar, according to my memory.

And finally, LOOK AT THE MESS!!!!!

I didn't even work with the pie dough directly on this surface. I worked with the pie dough on a heavily floured, but cutting board. But flour got EVERYWHERE. The floor was slippery with flour, which was fun, because I got to slide everywhere even though my shoes were still on.

Finally, LOOK AT THIS HORRIBLE MESS OF DIRTY DISHES!!!!!!!!

That's not even all of it. I didn't want to show all of it. But the counter has a fucking mound of dishes, and because our kitchen is too small to give space to a dishwasher without sacrificing some of our other interests, I'm going to have to clean up after myself the old-fashioned way. Oy.