The shepherd didn't do this one...

I ripped off the shepherd's pie tonight. No ground meat, no peas.  Tonight was "use what you got" night. What I had was split chicken breast and time on my hands.  It was one of those weird Saturdays where I had a lot of different things to accomplish but still wanted to make a hearty dinner.  Shepherd's pie seemed to be the ticket! It seems more appropriate to call it Farmer's pie since I used a chicken!

I put four split chicken breasts on to boil and ran off to vacuum the husband's truck out. Okay, I don't really recommend you leave your chicken boiling alone. I have a small house. I kept coming back inside to keep an eye on my chicken. I did not want it flying the coop while I was making my husband happy!

Once the chicken was done, I carefully removed it from the bones and skin and shredded it.

Next I chopped about 2 pounds of gold potatoes (left the skin on) and put them to boil in the remaining chicken broth until tender.  While they were boiling I opened two cans of Campbell's Cream of Chicken and Herb soup and mixed it with one soup can of milk. I put this in the bottom of my 13" x 9" glass dish.

I added my shredded chicken to the soup/milk combination. Next I defrosted frozen Lima beans. I was out of peas. I am NEVER out of peas but for the first time, I was out of peas. I had to chose between edamame or Limas. I chose the Limas. I defrosted them to keep them from causing the casserole from taking to long to heat through.  I did this in the microwave.

Next I defrosted some crinkle cut carrots.  I like to keep frozen carrots on hand as I just don't always get to use fresh ones up before they go bad.  Sometimes I feel guilty about this but then I shrug my shoulders and am grateful that I have the modern conveniences of a freezer and frozen vegetables!

By this time, my golden potatoes were tender. I drained them and added one stick of REAL butter and a splash of milk and mashed them with a hand masher.  A liberal dash of salt and heaping dash of pepper was also added.  Spreading them over top the carrots, Limas and chicken mixture, into a 350 degree oven it all went for 25 minutes.  It heated through very well and came out hot and tasty!

So, I don't think the shepherd would have made this pie, but definitely the farmer! Or at least this silly wife and mother who wanted to feed her family!!