Black Bean Shepherds Pie, Or Heading Down to Hanford Tonight

Today was a busy day that saw me doing last minute things to prepare for our trip to the Central Valley for my dear cousin Sorelle's baby shower! She is expecting a girl in early April, and we are just so excited! I can't wait to meet my new little niece! So laundry had to be finished, and put away. Beds stripped and allowed to breath, then remade. Food had to be cleared out. Kitty boxes needed to be cleaned out. The trash and recycling needed to be taken down. Bags must be packed and the car cleaned out. And all while taking care of the twins! Luckily, Milo had a play date after school, and so I need not drive to Burlingame! Sweet!

For our quick dinner before heading out, I put the black beans in to soak the night before, then pulled them out around noon to start boiling. I placed them into the large stock pot and covered them with water and just let them boil stirring every so often for about 4 hours. I put about 10 new white potatoes on to boil, cutting them into 1/2 inch cubes first. Then I took two cubes of muffin sized chicken broth, the kale finely chopped, an onion finely chopped, and some Celtic gray sea salt and black pepper, threw them into the pot, along with a bag of frozen peas that had been sitting in our freezer and really needed to be cooked. I stirred the mix frequently. As soon as the potatoes were ready to mash, I turned the oven to broil and pulled out the last of the cheese curds and a half a stick of butter and mashed the potatoes in their pot. I made sure the "stew" was laying flat in it's pot, then covered the entire pot with the potatoes (making sure not to let them mix, but cover the stew). Then I stuck the entire pot into the broiler and left it for about 8 minutes. It was all ready to serve.

While Ray dipped up the plates, I cleaned out the pot I used to boil the potatoes. As soon as we finished this meal, of which the twins ended up eating the bean and peas out of only, we quickly cleaned all the dishes and changed the twins into their night clothes. Off we went!

I am actually blogging this well into Saturday because I was so incredibly exhausted when we got to my mom's house that there was no way I was going to be able to be coherent about what I had done that day. Perhaps I should have posted last night; probably would have made for a fun read any way! Off to finish cleaning out our storage unit! Nos pars!