Ah, cheddar topped cottage pie! When it comes to cottage pie and shepherd's pie, I'm pretty much a girl who can't say no. It's not like I don't have multiple recipes for various variations of this recipe. And during the course of collecting all of these recipes and blogging about them incessantly, I have learned the difference between shepherd's pie (lamb) and cottage pie (beef). I've made it with and without peas, with sliced potatoes and mashed potatoes. You'd think I'd be over it by now. But no. Because I realized I had not yet tried it with cheddar cheese (Cabot cheddar of course) mixed into the mashed potatoes, and that was all the excuse I needed to put it back on the menu for the one millionth time. It was a new recipe! It included cheese! I had no choice!