Easy Ground Beef #5 – Beef and Potatoes

This is a good ole recipe. One for those people (aka – men) in your life that only eat meat and potatoes. Hi Daddy! It calls for a topping of brown gravy. Barry always sings “Gravy Love! My Gravy Love! I need ya, oh how I need ya love!” That’s how we feel about gravy in this house. You can put brown gravy on anything and instantly make it a delicious dish. Heck, I like eating it straight out of the pan with a spoon.  I am not ashamed.  Don’t point fingers because I know you do it too. So, let’s make this last ground beef recipe for the week and please all our men folk.

Pretty simple ingredients here – milk, butter, potatoes, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, ground beef, and a packet of brown gravy mix. These are things you should always have in your pantry, especially the garlic powder and onion powder. If a recipe calls for fresh garlic and you don’t have any, you can substitute 1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder in the place of one clove of chopped garlic. I love substitutes! Hello substitute teachers out there!

While you’re doing your other things, you want your potatoes to cook. Stick them in a pot, cover them with water, and bring to a boil. Boil about 15 minutes or until tender. I decided to peel my potatoes before I chopped them, but you could also leave the peeling on. That would just give you more roughage – mmmmmmmmmm, fiber!

Put your meat in a skillet and brown it over medium heat. You don’t want it really chunky, so stir often to break it up into little pieces. I have a cool little gadget from Pampered Chef that does it for me, but a big fork would do the job. My mom uses a meat fork to do it.

For this recipe I wanted to drain AND rinse my meat. Most of the time I just drain the fat off, but I knew I was adding gravy and I didn’t want greasy gravy. Ew. Gag. ACK! I just put my meat in a colander and run it under some hot water. This is my favorite colander. If it breaks, I will be very sad and hold a funeral.

Now, it’s time to make the gravy! Woohoo! Follow the directions on your packet. Mine said to add 1 cup of water and bring the mixture to a boil. I boiled it 3 minutes and then took it off the heat so it would thicken up. I wanted to drink it……I really did. But Barry was in the kitchen and I didn’t want to look like an idiot.

Put your drained meat back into the skillet and add the garlic powder and onion powder. Stir well to incorporate. Make sure you get it nice and stirred up. You don’t want someone getting a nice big bite of garlic……especially if you sleep with that someone.

When your potatoes are tender, take them off the stove and drain them. Put them back in the pot and add milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

Now, it’s time to mash. You could use your potato masher, but I wanted these really smooth…..so I broke out the trusty hand mixer.  “Beat it! Beat it! No one wants to be defeated!”

Everything is done so it’s time to construct our plates. For your first layer, you want a big glob of potatoes. Don’t skimp.

Dump some of your beef mixture on top of the potatoes. It doesn’t have to be fancy. See, mine went all over the place. I think Annie was crawling up my leg. She wanted some gravy.

Top it off with some wonderful brown gravy. Ahhhh. Isn’t it beautiful? Brown gravy makes everything better. If you’ve had a bad day, fix you a pot of gravy and just drink it. You’ll feel better and won’t get a hangover like you would with Vodka.

People, this was delicious! It reminded me a little bit of Shepherd’s Pie, but much simpler. Even Annie liked it and she’s weird about mashed potatoes. So, it’s a winner with husbands AND children. It doesn’t get much better than that. Please pass the gravy.