Am I the only one who was traumatized by the frozen pot pies from the early adventures of frozen food? Swanson and Banquet's renditions came quickly to be a mainstay of my working mother's repertoire, much to the dismay of picky-eater me. All that stuff mooshed up together. Pastry that wasn't crisp all the way through – without the redeeming quality of having blackberry or cherry juice as the wetting agent. Nope. Loathed 'em. The only redeeming quality was the little aluminum pie pan, washed and saved by my Depression-marked parents.
Now things are different. My tastes are vastly wider and they've come to be much better (and freshly made) stuff. Same thing, minus the wretched history, for shepherd's pie, the soothing mashed-potato topping welcoming on cold nights like these. Here's a few notes on the besties around. And a particular tip of the hat to the bakery elves at Sugaree for taking me past the heart-pounding face-off with a frozen one.