Monday, November 9, 2015

Recipe for clay free shepherds pie



Clay free shepherds pie

You will need :
You choice of serving dish.

Grated cork. You can buy this at shops that sell stuff for model trains. But you can easily make your own using a cork and a fine grater. The ones you use for lemon zest or nutmeg work great. The grated cork will become your mince meat. You will a real cork not the modern plastic kind. Last time I made this I used a cork mat and it worked like a dream. Easy to grind and so good looking !


For the vegetables  some tiny  pieces of orange and green craft foam  or plastic. You can cut them from a plastic bag if you like. I chose green for peppers and  orange for carrots but you can pick any color you like.

Glass paint in a light brown color. To make the sauce.

From left to right : cork for mince meat, carrots and peppers and glass paint for the  sauce.

For the mashed  potato on top you will need :
Snow paint ( like Aileene's true snow) and some cream paint. Mix a little cream into the snow paint till it looks like mashed potato.  If you cannot find snow paint try white puff paint or some of the stuff you use to fill holes in the wall with.  They all give similar results but I like the snow paint best.

To add the nice brown color on top you will can try things like : light brown chalk, oil pastels or even eye shadow in the right color.

Let's start cooking.

Put a blob of glass paint in the dish you want to sever the pie in. Add some cork and some veggies and give it a good mix.  If needed add more paint or more cork. If you want the dish to look like mine with some of the pie already served you need to have more filling on one side and you may have to remove some excess.

Believe me it will look like a real mess. But give it time to dry and you will be amazed to see how  good it looks



             
Then it is time to add the potato topping.  Mix  the snow paint or whatever you are using  with some cream paint to create a nice colour. Make sure it is not runny or it will be allover your dish. You want it to be like the real thing so puree like.

Spread over the top. A knife works really nice there. I make some little peaks using a toothpick for I think that makes it  look better. Leave to dry. Overnight is best.





The finishing touch is adding the golden color to the top of the dish using pastels, chalk or eye shadow. Use a Qtip or a small brush and start with a little bit of color. Adding is easy taking off not so easy.

Now you are done , serve with pride and enjoy