Remember last week when I said that I had a great post all ready to go on St. Patrick’s Day, only to find that I couldn’t even get into my blog to post? Well, today I’ve got that recipe for you. In fact, you might remember that I also said that this week will be focused on some of my favorite 6-Week Body Makeover recipes.

Why? Because 1) they don’t contain sugar or flour, the 2 most addictive ingredients, and 2) when I asked you what your #1 roadblock to weight loss success was, you answered food addiction. What I can tell you from my own experience is that the more I enjoy the clean eating, healthy meals that I make, the less tempted I am to go for the addictive stuff.

So here it is, one of my favorite 6WBMO recipes – Shepherd’s Pie. It’s funny because I always thought this was an Irish dish until I did a little bit of research on the origins of shepherd’s pie and found that it points more to England than to Ireland – just a little tid-bit there on the history of Shepherd’s Pie.

Shepherd’s Pie is a dish that I absolutely love in the wintertime because it’s very filling and substantial. This was my staple when I was hitting the slopes hard this winter. It’s also a great way to get in some veggies, carbs, and lean protein all in one portion. It doesn’t have to be a wintertime only special though – I’ve made it in the summertime, too.

The recipe calls for either very lean ground beef or ground turkey breast. I’ve tried both and I prefer the turkey breast because I’m not a big red meat eater, but also the ground beef is much higher in fat and therefore won’t help you lose weight as easily as the turkey breast. Another option would be to make it with lean ground chicken breast that you buy from the butcher – beware of the ground chicken sold in the store – I’ve never found any pre-packaged ground chicken that was only the breast and that’s what you want for the 6-Week Body Makeover plan.

You’ll see that the recipe also gives you the option of topping it with cheese if you’d like to do that for the rest of your family. The cheese isn’t a part of the 6-Week Body Makeover so I don’t include it, however I do like to throw an extra amount of NSA (no salt added) tomato sauce, tomatoes, and green beans in the mix, as well as carrots. I especially need more sauce when I load it up with the extra veggies.

Another trick that helps me with this dish is when I make the mashed potatoes, I measure them out before I spread them on top of the Shepherd’s Pie mixture. That way I don’t need to portion those out later. And as a final touch, I sprinkle the top with just a little bit of paprika, and maybe some parsley flakes – just makes it look pretty.

If you make this Shepherd’s Pie recipe come on back and leave a comment to share what you think about it. Enjoy!