If you time this right by putting your potatoes up to boil right away you can have this in the oven in 30 minutes or less and on a table in under an hour making it a pretty good weekend meal. There isn’t anything particularly difficult about this and it makes an extremely rustic food that is homey and comforting and can be tweaked to your tastes. You can use almost any vegetables on the inside (or go for just onions and meat if that’s your jam) but whatever you use make sure it is very finely diced which you can accomplish by grating them on the fine side of a box grater or pulsing the vegetables in a blender for a few seconds, you want everything but the peas to basically melt away while cooking down to give you a very uniform texture.
Shepherd's Pie
Heat a large high wallet skillet or a medium pot over medium heat, add the oil, onions, carrots, red pepper, zucchini, and meat and cook until the vegetables have started to wilt and the meat is mostly browned.
Add the Worcestershire sauce, chicken stock, vegetables, salt and pepper (and other herbs or spices to taste) and allow to cook until thickened then remove from heat.
Preheat the oven to 190°C, then assemble pie in a 9x9 glass baking pan or similar cooking vessel by placing the meat in the bottom of the pan, smoothing out the top and then placing the mashed potatoes on top, evening out the top until flat. Use a fork or other tool to rough the top of the mashed potatoes into your desired pattern then bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the potatoes start to brown on the top.