Our baby is 5 weeks old today, and that means the party’s over. Mr. Meat and Potatoes has been home for six weeks straight – an unheard of length of time given his profession, and now he has to go because the baby needs a new pair of shoes. Or, at least, a pack of diapers and some bigger onesies. That piggy gained 3 lbs in the first month, and he hasn’t even started eating my cooking yet, save what he gets via breastmilk, but how good can that be?

Anyway, because Mr. Meat and Potatoes has to hit the road, I made him a meal fit for a man, and one I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he’d love. It’s straightforward food, just like he likes it. No fancy words or exotic ingredients. No mushrooms or black olives, no broccoli, nothing whole grain or even remotely healthy. I couldn’t miss. Plus, it involved pork, and in this house, we never met a pork product we didn’t like.

So, for a never-fail, man-pleasin’, fall recipe that is also quick, cheap, and plenty of it, follow my lead. Start with a pack of pork chops you got two for one on sale at Dillon’s, and add to them the last few potatoes in the house. If you have a few simple ingredients on hand, you’ve got yourself a full meal deal: fried pork chops with perfect mashed potatoes and cream gravy.

So assemble the team. Start your taters first. You’ll need five potatoes or so, depending on how big they are. Grandma always said to do one potato per person, plus one for the pot. Peel them and cut them into sixths. Try to get the pieces pretty uniform so they cook evenly. Put them in a pot to boil. I usually bring my water to a boil first and then drop them in because otherwise it takes forever for the water to get hot enough. But this presents a burn risk with the splattering water, so take precautions.

Once your taters are boiling, you’re ready to move to your chops.

I prefer to use bone-in chops for a juicier result, but whatever you have will do. Also, it’s good if the chops are room temp and not cold, because a cold chop will stick to the pan more. If you have a seasoned cast iron skillet, this is a good application for it, although this time I just used a stainless steel All Clad saute pan and it worked perfectly.

Ingredients:

5 or 6 pork chops
2 C flour
2 C buttermilk
1 T onion powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 T garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 C cooking oil – I used olive, but peanut is really good too.
2 T butter

Step 1) Combine the flour and the spices in a wide, shallow bowl or pie pan.

Step 2) Pour the buttermilk (or just regular old milk if it’s all you got) into another bowl.

Step 3) Heat the oil and butter in the pan, over med-hi heat until almost to the smoking point.

Step 4) Dredge one pork chop in the milk and then in the flour mixture, and add it to the hot pan. Repeat for each additional chop.

Step 5) Cook them for 3-4 minutes per side – longer for thicker chops. *Note: I am not a freak about thoroughly cooked pork. I don’t want it still oinking, but if it’s not 100 percent cooked through, I’m down with that. I promise, it will not kill you – and it will taste a WHOLE LOT BETTER than if you cook it into shoe leather.

Step 6) Remove cooked chops from the pan and put them on a plate, and cover them immediately with foil. They will rest there for a few minutes while you finish up your taters. Also, remove any excess grease from the pan, and set it aside. You need the fried bits for the gravy, so don’t get rid of that brown goodness in the bottom of your pan.

If your potatoes are done (fork tender all the way through), drain the water off them, and set them back on the burner over warm heat. This will help you continue to steam the liquid out of the taters and will make them fluffier instead of glue-y in consistency.

For perfect mashers, I suggest using a hand masher. I know it’s not ideal if you have a lot of potatoes to mash, but in this case we only have five or six, so I think your arm can take it. I start by putting butter in the pot with the taters- and yes, I put a lot in. I don’t mess around with cream cheese or anything else these days – I just do it all with butter and milk. So be liberal with the butter and do as much as you can stand. Maybe 3 or 4 T. Then start on your milk. GO EASY. Put in a couple of tablespoons and then mash a little and see how your consistency is. Add more milk as needed, but if you’ve cooked your taters soft enough, you shouldn’t need much. I like my mashers light and fluffy, and the trick to that is not to over-milk them. At the end, I usually salt them a little, and put another healthy pat of butter on top for show. Because I’m fancy like that. And then I leave them in the pan on top of the stove so people can just serve themselves, because why dirty another dish?

Now for the gravy. Oooh, gravy. Good, good gravy.

Your pork chops made a nice start for the gravy. It’s sooo easy from here on out. If your pan is still hot, great. If it’s not, then heat it up. When it’s good and hot, you are going to deglaze it. That is, you are going to put some milk in it and knock all the brown stuff loose off the bottom of the pan. Pour in a cup of milk (or half and half, if you have the stomach for it), and use a spatula to scrape up the good brown bits from the bottom. Then add 2 T of flour to the pan, and stir around like you’re making a roux. You should still have some fat in the pan from your frying adventure, and between the fat and the milk and the flour, you should be in good shape toward gravy. Stir stir stir with a good whisk so your flour doesn’t make lumps, and make sure it’s hot enough to thicken. Add plenty of salt and pepper, and adjust your milk as needed. It’s so easy it’s sad.

Of course, you won’t feel right without a vegetable – and I prefer something green on this plate. If your partner is like mine, vegetable = peas or corn. Very exciting. So I just do frozen ones with some butter and salt and pepper and he couldn’t be happier. Of course, I am very easy to show up, and hopefully you can come up with a veggie that has a little more personality than mine did.

But really, this meal is about fried stuff and gravy, and who has time to think about the health food part of the show when you’re focused on making perfect, lump-free cream gravy? Heck, if I had to do it again, I might skip the peas and just add a huge hunk of buttery garlic bread to the plate. Try to stop me.