Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

My first attempt at making gravy from scratch and my first successful attempt with mashed potatoes. We had this a couple of weeks ago when I visited my family. Mama made roasted chicken with herb dressing. I prepared this to complement her dish. The only bad thing about this was there wasn’t enough gravy to go around. Oh well. Next time I’m gonna double the recipe below so we can enjoy the mashed potatoes more. Plus, we can put gravy on our rice. Yum! (Do you do that too?)

Mashed Potatoes

(serves at 5-7 people depending on how hungry they are)

What I needed: 10 pieces potatoes, peeled and quartered. 2 tablespoons butter. 1 cup milk. Salt and pepper to taste.

What I did: Boil potatoes in water. Cook till tender, about 15 minutes; drain. Transfer the potatoes to a bowl and mash, mash, mash to your heart’s content! Blend in the milk and the butter until smooth and creamy. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Gravy

(serves only 4-5 people and there’s not even enough to make a second serving)

What I needed: 2 tablespoons flour. 2 tablespoons butter. 1 cup chicken drippings.

What I did: First of all, I did NOT have enough chicken drippings. It only came to around 1/2 cup of drippings! Here’s what my Mama and I did: we melted 3/4 of a Knorr chicken cube in a bit of water. That worked perfectly. Anyway, in a saucepan melt the butter, add the flour, mix in the drippings and stir, stir, stir till it meets your desired consistency. I think I added more than 2T of flour and even a bit of water because the taste was either too salty or the consistency too thin. I like mine a little bit lumpy. Mmm. Make sure you keep stirring so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

If the measured ingredients don’t meet your desired taste or consistency, don’t be afraid to adjust! Cooking involves making bold decisions every step of the way and that’s what makes experimenting with cooking so much fun!

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You can serve it in different ways! Serve it as pictured above, or make a little crater in the middle of your mashed potato dish and pour the gravy in.

I’ve encountered recipes wherein they mix in some roasted garlic into the potatoes. That sounds yummy! I’ll try that some other time. First, let me tell you about a failed experiment I did when I was in college. It was Christmas time and I wanted to make my mashed potatoes more Christmassy. I put in red food coloring in half of the potatoes and green food coloring in the other half. It didn’t look too appetizing but I served it anyway. Need I tell you that nobody dared touch my Red & Green Mashed Potatoes? Ah well. I think I’m gonna stick to leaving my Mashed Potatoes a natural yellow.

Hi! I'm Toni Tiu, and I've been blogging at at Wifely Steps since 2003. This started as a blog to help newly weds adjust to married life. It has evolved into a home and parenting blog. I write about things close to my heart -- good eats, good reads, family, marriage, and the little things that make everyday happy.