Twice Baked Shepard's Pie

Directions

1. Let's bake some potatoes friends! Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. With a fork, poke your potato about 6-8 times. Coat each of these ginormous potatoes with some extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle liberally with kosher salt. Place the potatoes DIRECTLY onto the oven rack. You can put a baking sheet under them on the rack below to catch any drippings. These will bake for 1 hour.
2. While the potatoes are baking, chop up your onion, carrot & garlic. Chop the vegetables in uniform size to ensure they cook evenly.
3. In a large heavy bottomed pot, heat 1 Tbsp EVOO and 2 Tbsp butter over medium heat. Toss in your carrots and cook till just about soft (5 minutes). Next add in your onion and cook for 3-4 minutes.
4. Once the onions start 'sweating' their juices, add in the ground beef, thyme and salt & pepper. Cook the meat till browned, about 10-12 minutes.
5. After your ground beef is cooked through and onions & carrots are soft, drain just a little of the grease (reserve some in pot). Sprinkle in the flour one Tbsp at a time. Quickly mix this in with your meat & veggie blend. The flour will bind it all together and really thicken it up fast!
6. Now to finish up your Shepards Pie filling! Add in your broth, wine, tomato paste, Worcestershire, peas & garlic. Give it a good stir and bring heat down to a simmer. This will cook down quite a bit and thicken up after 20-30 minutes. It has SUCH a great, rich color to it!
7. While your filling is simmering away, your baked potatoes should be done. Remove after the hour is up and allow to cool a bit, you need to be able to handle them. Also, bump that oven up to 400 degrees. Have a large bowl ready with the remaining butter already in it. Cut each potato in half lengthwise. With a spoon (carefully) scoop out about 90% of the potatoes flesh and put into the bowl. Careful NOT to break that potatoes skin! *I like to almost 'outline' where I'll be scooping out, keep just enough flesh against the potatoes skin to keep its shape. Place these hollowed out skins onto a baking sheet.
8. With the potato flesh and butter now in the bowl, pour in your milk or heavy cream and a pinch of salt & pepper. Now mash away!! Or for creamier mashed potatoes, use an immersion blender if you have one available. Have ready your shredded cheddar and chopped parsley.
9. Once you've finished the potatoes, your meat filling will be cooked down and ready to go!! The assembly step can be a bit messy, but that's ok! That just means it's going to be good.... Scoop a hefty amount of your meat & veggie mix straight into your potato skin shell. Next is the mashed potato layer. Go ahead and be liberal with that amount as well! What the heck right? ;) *you of course can make this "pretty" and use an icing bag to add the mashed potato layer, but I like it more rustic myself.
10. Top each filled, potato off with a good amount of cheddar cheese and pop these bad boys in the oven for about 15 minutes.
11. Once time is up, remove from the oven and sprinkle with some chopped, fresh parsley for added flavor and color. There you have it...Twice Baked Shepard's Pie!! Enjoy!