This Is the Shit Me and Tucker Eat

Let me tell you something about working construction all day.

By the time I get home, the last goddamn thing I want to do is stand in the kitchen for two hours preparing some elaborate supper that requires fourteen ingredients I've never heard of and a cooking technique invented by somebody named Pierre.

I'm hungry.

I'm tired.

My back hurts.

And I've usually got a teenager wandering around the house opening the refrigerator every eleven minutes like he thinks something new is going to appear in there.

That's Tucker.

The boy can eat.

I don't mean he has a healthy appetite. I mean I'm beginning to think there's something medically wrong with the amount of food that disappears in this house.

I'll buy groceries on Sunday, and by Tuesday I'm standing in front of an empty refrigerator wondering whether we've been robbed.

Then I'll find three empty cereal boxes in the trash and a gallon of milk with approximately one teaspoon left in it.

Apparently putting an empty milk jug back in the refrigerator is too much trouble, but leaving just enough milk to technically avoid calling it empty is perfectly acceptable.

Teenagers are crafty little bastards.

Anyway, I've decided to start sharing some of the stuff we eat around here.

Not because I think I'm some kind of chef.

I'm not.

I'm a contractor who knows how to make a decent supper without spending half his paycheck at the grocery store.

And judging by some of the ridiculous cooking videos I've seen online, that might actually qualify me as an expert these days.

I'm Not Cooking for a Damn Restaurant

Have you watched these people cooking on the internet?

They'll start out telling you they're making a quick and easy weeknight supper.

Then they pull out twenty-seven ingredients, three different pans, a food processor, and some herb I've never seen outside a flower bed.

Forty-five minutes later, they're drizzling something green over a plate with six bites of food on it.

And everybody in the comments is talking about how beautiful it looks.

Beautiful?

I just spent ten hours working outside. I don't need beautiful.

I need supper.

And I need enough of it that Tucker doesn't come back downstairs twenty minutes later asking if we've got anything to eat.

That's another thing.

You can feed that boy an entire plate of food, watch him clean it up, and before you've even washed the skillet he'll be standing in the kitchen looking for something else.

I'll ask him if he's hungry.

"No."

Then what the hell are you doing with your head in the refrigerator?

"Just looking."

Looking for what? A missing person?

Close the goddamn door.

Tonight We're Making Hamburger Gravy Over Mashed Potatoes

Now, this is the kind of meal I grew up eating.

Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. Just good, filling food.

Grandma Arlene could make a pound of hamburger feed people who had no business being satisfied with a pound of hamburger.

She knew how to stretch a grocery dollar.

And unlike these people who seem to think every meal needs to be an artistic experience, she understood that the purpose of supper was to feed somebody.

So tonight we're making hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes.

Some people call it hamburger gravy. Some call it hamburger steak gravy, although there ain't a steak anywhere in the damn thing.

I call it supper.

And if you've never had it, you're missing out.

What You'll Need

This feeds about four normal people, or me and Tucker with a little left over if I'm lucky.

For the hamburger gravy:

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and black pepper
• A little garlic powder
• A tablespoon of butter or oil, only if the meat doesn't leave enough fat in the pan

For the mashed potatoes:

• 2 pounds potatoes
• 3 tablespoons butter
• About 1/2 cup milk, added a little at a time
• Salt and black pepper

That's it.

You probably have half this stuff in the kitchen already.

And if you don't like onions, leave them out.

I'm not coming to your house to inspect the damn skillet.

Here's How I Make It

First, peel your potatoes, cut them into chunks, and put them in a pot of cold water with some salt.

Bring it to a boil and cook them until they're tender, usually fifteen or twenty minutes depending on how big you cut them.

While they're cooking, get yourself a decent-sized skillet.

Put the hamburger and chopped onion in there and cook it over medium heat, breaking the meat apart until it's browned all the way through.

If there's a whole swimming pool of grease in the pan, drain most of it off. You want roughly three tablespoons of fat left to help make the gravy. Add a little butter if the meat was lean.

Now sprinkle the flour over the hamburger.

Stir it around for a minute or two.

Don't skip this part unless you enjoy gravy that tastes like somebody dumped flour straight out of the bag into your mouth.

Slowly pour in the beef broth while stirring.

Add the milk, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, salt, and plenty of black pepper.

Let it simmer gently for five to ten minutes, stirring now and then, until it thickens up into a proper gravy.

If it gets too thick, add a splash of broth or water.

If it's too thin, let it cook a little longer.

This ain't rocket science.

By now your potatoes ought to be done.

Drain them, throw in the butter, add some milk, and mash them until they're the way you like them.

I don't care if they're perfectly smooth.

A few lumps never killed anybody.

Put a big pile of mashed potatoes on a plate, spoon that hamburger gravy over the top, and you're done.

If you've got green beans or corn, put some on the side.

If you've got a piece of bread to drag through the leftover gravy, even better.

You've got yourself a supper.

And Don't Throw Away the Leftovers

Here's something Grandma Arlene taught me that apparently a lot of people have forgotten.

Food costs money.

Don't waste the shit.

If you've got leftover hamburger gravy, put it in the refrigerator and eat it the next day. Refrigerate it promptly, within two hours of cooking, and use it within three or four days.

Heat it back up thoroughly with a splash of broth or water, and it'll be just fine.

You can put it over toast, rice, or another batch of potatoes.

I've eaten it over a biscuit before.

Hell, I'd probably eat it over a piece of cardboard if the gravy was good enough.

And that's another reason I like meals like this.

You don't need expensive cuts of meat.

You don't need fancy ingredients.

You don't need to spend eighty dollars making a supper for two people.

You need a skillet, some potatoes, and enough common sense to keep from burning the house down.

The Boy Can Learn to Cook, Too

Now, don't think Tucker gets to sit around waiting for me to serve him like we're running a damn hotel.

He's perfectly capable of helping.

And he ought to know how to cook.

I don't care whether you're raising a boy or a girl. By the time they're grown, they ought to know how to feed themselves without having to order something through an app.

Cooking isn't women's work.

It isn't men's work.

It's grown-ass-person work.

If you can operate a phone, play video games, and figure out how to connect six electronic devices to the internet, you can learn how to brown hamburger and boil a potato.

I want Tucker to grow up knowing how to take care of himself.

That means doing laundry, cleaning up after himself, knowing how to use tools, and being able to make something for supper besides a bowl of cereal.

And yes, before somebody asks, he's still a teenager.

Which means some days getting him to do a simple chore requires the patience of a saint and the negotiating skills of a hostage specialist.

But he'll learn.

I did.

And I didn't have a father standing around showing me everything, either.

Grandma Arlene made damn sure I learned from somebody.

She wasn't raising a boy who'd grow up expecting another person to do everything for him.

I'm trying to do the same.

You Don't Have to Eat Fancy to Eat Good

I think people make cooking a hell of a lot harder than it needs to be.

Not every meal needs to be something you've never tried before.

Not every supper needs a recipe that takes six pages to explain.

And you sure as hell don't need to spend half your evening watching somebody on YouTube explain the spiritual importance of properly caramelized onions.

Sometimes a plate of hamburger gravy and mashed potatoes is exactly what you need.

It's hot.

It's filling.

It tastes good.

And if you're lucky, there's enough left over that you don't have to cook again tomorrow.

Although in this house, that's a pretty big if.

Because there's a teenager living here who apparently has a second stomach nobody told me about.

I swear, one of these days I'm going to open the refrigerator and find Tucker sitting inside it with a fork.

And you know what?

He'll probably look up at me and ask what we're having for supper.