"You Don't Eat Meat?"

"All right, then I make lamb."

I hope everyone had a happy St. Patrick's Day. I'm pretty sure that the people who were at the bar across the street from 6 am to 2 am did. Although, today, they might be regretting some of their decisions.

A year ago, I would never have made shepherd's pie for St. Patrick's Day. Mainly because Mark was a vegetarian and I have no idea how to use non-meat proteins like seitan and tofu. I'm just proud of myself for knowing about them at all. My experience with vegetarian cooking is that unless you are making pasta, most of the time it feels like you are making a bunch of side dishes. But all that is in the past, and our household now consists of two very happy ominvores.

In making the shepherd's pie, I thought I was being quite exotic to use lamb instead of beef, until I actually started cooking with it and realized that it cooks pretty much the same as ground beef, even if the flavor is a leetle bit different.  After that discovery, it didn't seem so magical.

Before baking.  Mashed potatoes with white cheddar, now that's magical.

After baking, and sampling.  Pretty darn good.  Too bad we couldn't have any of the leftovers today.

What the kitchen looked like afterward.

As newly weds, for the first dinner I made at our apt., Mark offered to do the dishes. After washing away for quite some time, he wearily asked if next time, I could try not to use every dish and cooking utensil we owned.  As you can tell from the pictures, not much has changed, except that now we have more dishes and cooking utensils!

And since it's Friday and I'm feeling benevolent, why not get into the mood with song that everyone is listening to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0 Seriously, it will change your life.