For the people who asked, here is the recipe for the cottage pie that I made last week. It was created and shared on The Harcombe Diet Forum and there are lot more lovely looking things on there for me to try in future weeks.
The seasonings in this recipe can be adjusted to your particular taste. I just used mixed herbs rather than all the individual ones listed and I didn't use the chilli powder and mine was plenty tasteful. This recipe serves 2 but I doubled it and we just had it on its own.
Ingredients
250g beef mince
small head of cauliflower
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, diced
1 medium leek, sliced
50g mature cheddar, grated
1-2 freshly crushed cloves of garlic
1 tsp mustard
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp rosemary
1/4 tsp sage
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp majoram
100-150ml beef stock
splash of worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp rice flour or cornflour
butter and double cream to taste
salt and pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4
The Topping
Cut the cauliflower into even sized chunks and steam or boil until it is tender
When it is tender, chuck it in a bowl, add butter and some double cream and beat until smooth thick and creamy.
Keep adding double cream to get the right consistency, it needs to firm to sit on top of pie.
Add salt and pepper to taste
The Filling
Heat butter in a pan over a moderate heat then add the onion and carrot to soften but not brown.
Add the mince and brown it all over
Add 1/2 the beef stock and all the seasonings
Whisk the other 1/2 of the stock with the rice/corn flour and stir in to the mince meat. Add a splash of Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste and simmer for 15 minutes
The Pie
Put the filling into a baking dish, add the topping, and level out with the back of a spoon
Chop the leek into 1/2 inch slices and sprinkle over the topping, scatter the cheese over the leeks
Place in the oven and cook for 30-40 minutes or until topping is crusty and golden.
This is a phase 2 fat recipe due to the cream. I have to admit the butter and cream in the cauliflower made a huge difference to the taste, more than I was expecting if I am honest. I did have a few problems trying to find the ingredients that was suitable for the diet. Mustard was a big challenge, most mustards have sugar as one of the main ingredients and I ended up with Dijon Mustard in the end as the sugar was towards the end of the ingredients but it doesn't mean the quantity was any different. Beef stock was another problem, all have wheat and some have sugar, I ended up with the supermarket's own brand as that didn't have sugar in it but I think I need to spend some time sourcing items like this from alternative places such as a health food shop.
I also discovered that Sainsburys only sell lean mince beef. Now before I went on the diet I would have seen that as a really good move for our Nation's health, however doing this diet we are encouraged to eat the animal fat as it is a natural fat and as we aren't eating any other fat that our body needs. It left me feeling short changed as the option to choose full fat mince had been taken off me. People should be able to choose whether they eat healthily or not. It is also worth noting that Sainsburys haven't removed cream cakes and chocolate from their stores, which I'm sure is a bigger seller than mince beef!
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