What do you call this?

   Ah Friday, how perfect is your timing. And what's more, you've brought the sunshine with you! How I've missed the sunshine! It's been cloudy and rainy and cold. Last night I decided I wanted a comforting dinner--it's just the kind of mood the yucky weather puts you in. 


    I actually hadn't planned on blogging about. Mostly, though, because I didn't know what it was. I still don't know what to call it either. But it was good. No, no take that back--it was great! Since I hadn't planned on posting about it, I didn't take any pictures of the process. But I do have one of the finished product!

    I started out peeling and dicing the rest of the sweet potatoes I had in my pantry. My plan for these was steaming. Once I got that started, I started boiling some water to cook up 1 1/4 cups pearl barley. (I LOVE this stuff!!!)


    Now it was time to brown the ground beef. I cooked it with a little pink salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder and marjorum. Once it was finished, I put the beef into a bowl and set it aside. In the same pan (to get the flavor of the spices I had used) I threw in some minced garlic. 


    While the garlic was sauteeing, I took out some frozen spinach I had and cooked this according to package directions, and also by adding a little sea salt and lemon slices. By the time the spinach had finished cooking, so had the barley. I removed what was left of the lemon slices and poured the pot of cooked spinach into the pot of barley. I drizzled some olive oil in and then stirred it altogether. I let it sit over low heat.


    Back to the garlic. Once the garlic had started browning, I added one tablespoon of butter. As that finished melting/sauteeing with the garlic, I added in 2 cans of creamed corn. I stirred this altogether and let it sit over medium heat. 

Photo taken by Kyleigh.

    By now the sweet potatoes were as soft as they needed to be for mashing. I put them into the bowl of my stand mixer, added in a couple tablespoons of butter (c'mon, what are sweet potatoes without butter???) and some ground nutmeg and then turned the mixer onto low. I just let it go and it worked like a charm! Perfectly mashed sweet potatoes! Woohoo!

Photo taken by Kyleigh.

    While my potatoes were getting mashed, I added the browned ground beef into the pan of creamed corn--which had started simmering. I let that come back to simmering so that the beef would absorb some of the moisture and tastiness of the cream corn.





    My oldest came wandering into the kitchen and asked what I had decided on for dinner. See, we had a discussion earlier in the day about what to have, but we just never settled on anything. Anyway, so I told her I didn't know. This confused her as I obviously had food cooking. So, taking a chance on being straight with her, I told her exactly what I had cooking. I also explained that I wasn't sure just how it was all going to come together. These explanations made perfect sense to her. :)

Photo taken by Kyleigh.

    It was about this time I decided to give the spinach barley a try. (I still can't believe I added spinach to my food of my own accord--and actually wanted to eat it!!!) By now both girls were in the kitchen and since I was trying something, they wanted to as well. They. Liked. It. I worked very hard to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor. Normally, these girls don't like anything green. What was happening! haha

    I had decided, just before plating, to add some ricotta cheese to the spinach barley. I stirred that in and it was awesome!


    And just like that, I had dinner! My inspiration for this was Shepherd's Pie, which I had wanted to make but with a spin on it. First onto the plate was the spinach barley. Then the mashed sweet potatoes went on top of that. The final finish for the plate was the ground beef and creamed corn mixture overtop it all. 


    Making sure to get a little of everything in my bite, I tried it. I admit, I was a little hesitant at first because I didn't know where I was headed with all this. It turned out absolutely  delish!! I definitely recommend giving it a go!