Easter Sunday/Jasper's 1st Birthday/Meat Day!

So every year for the past decade I guess (I can't believe it's been that long), I give up meat for the entirety of Lent. It's always been a challenge, but for some reason, this year was exceptionally hard. I really (honestly) felt like I was missing something. So as it turned out, Easter Sunday coincided with Jasper's first birthday this year, and of course, the hubster wanted to celebrate by throwing our little pooch a party.

Jasper is such a punk. Just because it was his house and his day (not to mention he was the biggest dog), he had to make sure all his pooch guests knew their place (in the corner)! Thank goodness all the dogs in attendance were little dogs... I don't know if we would have been able to handle 7 large dogs running around.

But anyway, what I had been looking forward to that day was eating meat again. I actually didn't eat that much, but just a nibble was enough to feel whole again.

For Jasper's birthday, the hubster wanted to be in charge of a big ol' meat cake (not to be confused with meatloaf). He chopped up steak into cubes and mixed it with shredded cabbage and I don't know what else. I am purposely excluding the image from this post for specific reasons...

That left me dreaming about other meat dishes. I opted for shepherds pie (not realizing the connection with Jasper's german shepherdness) and sliders.

Individual Shepherds Pie:

Rather than put it in a big ol' dish and make people scoop servings out of it, I went with mini individual shepherds pie by making little crusts out of puff pastry (sheets from the frozen section at the market). For the filling, I sauteed some onions and ground beef with julienned and chopped carrots and zucchini, seasoned with some salt and pepper and added a bit of flour for thickening. I scooped a spoonful of the meat mixture into the puff pastry shell and then topped with mashed potatoes. Mmmm mashed potatoes. For shepherds pie, I had to go with red potatoes (it's got a slightly different texture and consistency than russet that, to me, goes better with shepherds pie)... chopped it up into small cubes (skin on, but cleaned) and boiled. Drain the potatoes and then add some butter (in my case, a stick and a half... shhhh!), some milk and salt and garlic powder to taste... and mash it alllll up! Scoop a bunch and top it on the meat... 

Sliders:

These actually took a bit longer than expected because I decided to finely chop and saute the onions and garlic before adding it to the raw ground beef mixture for the patties. In addition to the sauteed onions and garlic, I added some sauteed coursely chopped green onions, one egg, salt and pepper, mixed it all up and let the meat sit until I was ready to fry them up.

In the meantime, I fried up the bacon till they were nice and super crispy and sliced some tomatoes and avocado for toppings. Then I toasted some King's Hawaiian sweet bread rolls in the oven and laid them open ready for the meat.

It was time. I shaped small patties about 2" in diameter and slightly plump, and pan fried them on the stove until they were nice and crispy on the outside (and hopefully slightly pink on the inside). I placed each patty onto a waiting bun, I put them on the table next to the bacon, tomatoes, avocado, sliced cheese and sliced pickles for everyone to make their own according to taste.

This isn't the greatest photo of them, but it was all I was able to take before all 24 sliders disappeared. I am assuming they were edible since they were all gone before I returned back to the table. Or maybe people were just hungry?

Happy Easter!