A lighter shepherd’s pie

By KATHY MANWEILER

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

If you’re a meat and potatoes person, you can keep those favorites on your plate and still eat healthy.

But it’s important to make smart choices because some homestyle recipes can really weigh you down.

Take Paula Deen’s Shepherd’s Pie, for example. Don’t let the vegetables on the ingredient list fool you — her recipe is far from diet-friendly. Thanks to generous amounts of butter, sour cream and beef, each serving has 826 calories and 58 grams of fat. Eating a Baconator from Wendy’s — two hamburger patties with cheese, mayonnaise and six strips of bacon on a bun — would actually save you 7 fat grams.

Deen adds a buttery biscuit layer to this casserole, which piles on a surprising amount of fat and calories. By itself, the biscuit layer contains 250 calories and 14 fat grams per serving.

So that was the first thing to go when I set out to slim down this recipe. Without the biscuit topping, her Shepherd’s Pie contains 576 calories and 44 fat grams per serving. Those numbers are a little better, but even then, this meal still has more fat and calories than a Big Mac.

After deleting the biscuit layer, I added more vegetables, reduced the amount of ground beef by one-third and chose extra-lean meat in place of hamburger with a higher fat content.

Deen sautes her onions in butter, but you can skip that step without sacrificing taste by combining the onions with the ground beef while it’s browning. I also throw in a dash of Worcestershire sauce to spice things up for just a few calories.

Deen’s potato layer includes plenty of butter and sour cream. I mimic her flavor while slashing fat and calories by using a smaller amount of light sour cream, one tablespoon of butter and some fat-free milk.

My alterations to Deen’s recipe cut the calories by 66 percent and trimmed the fat by 88 percent.

KATHY’S SHEPHERD’S PIE

1 cup minced onion

1 pound 96-percent lean ground beef

1 15-ounce can tomato sauce

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 cup frozen peas and carrots mixture

1 cup frozen corn

1⁄2 cup frozen green beans

3 medium potatoes

1 tablespoon butter

1⁄4 cup light sour cream

1⁄4 cup fat-free milk, heated

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook the ground beef over medium-high heat. When the beef is almost browned, add the minced onion and continue to cook until meat is fully browned and onion is soft. Add tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce and mix in frozen vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Peel potatoes and cut them into slices about 1⁄4 inch thick. Cook the potatoes in boiling water, covered, for about 15 minutes, or until they’re fork-tender. Drain the potatoes and add the butter, light sour cream and heated milk. Mash the potatoes until moderately smooth and add salt and pepper to taste.

Lightly spray an 11 by 7 casserole dish with cooking spray. Put the meat and vegetable mixture into the dish, then spread the potatoes over the meat and vegetables. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until meat is bubbly and potatoes are starting to brown on top.

Serves 6.

Per serving: 282 calories, 7 fat grams, 20 protein grams, 35 carb grams, 141mg sodium, 50 mg cholesterol, 2.6 fiber grams.

Adapted from a Food Network recipe by Paula Deen