I’m sure most of us have heard of smash burgers, right? And then there are crash potatoes. Well, what happens when you combine the two? You get a one-dish Crash Dinner. It has all the yummies served so conveniently all in one place. Besides being tasty, it’s a quick fix for those busy times.

Crash Dinner
Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients
For the mashed potatoes:
6 medium red potatoes, cut into 1 1/2-inch-thick pieces
water, to taste
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

For the beef-mushroom mixture:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion, halved and sliced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (14.5-ounce) can beef broth
1/2 cup crispy fried onions

Directions
1 - In a large saucepan, add the potatoes and enough of the water to just cover them and then bring to a boil.

2 - Reduce the heat to medium and cook the potatoes until they are tender, about 10-15 minutes.

3 - While the potatoes are cooking, in a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the beef, the mushrooms, and the onion and cook, while crumbling the meat, until the beef is no longer pink, 6-8 minutes. Drain the excess grease.

4 - Stir the flour, 1/2 teaspoon of the pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon of the salt into the beef mixture until blended.

5 - Gradually stir the broth into the beef mixture and bring to a boil.

6 - Reduce the heat and simmer the beef mixture, stirring occasionally, until it thickens, about 5 minutes.

7 - Drain the potatoes then return them to the saucepan.

8 - Mash the potatoes to your desired consistency.

9 - Add the butter, the half-and-half, the remaining salt, and the remaining pepper to the potatoes and stir to combine.

10 - Serve the beef mixture over the mashed potatoes, topped with the crispy fried onions.

Shhh. Don't tell and this isn't an office tip but I've been known to use Idahoan Mashed Potato mix when I'm in a big hurry.

Now that the temps are getting more comfortable, I need to add this dish back into my dinner rotation. Someone who whips this up is Katherine “Kit” Carson. She laughs a little every time she makes it for her hunky Homeland Security investigator mate, Derek Alexander. See, she’s an ARFF–Airport Rescue Firefighter. She has a bumper sticker that says “My other vehicle is a crash truck.” That’s what those weird line green fire apparatus trucks are that you see on the news when there’s an incident at an airport. Their name is self-explanatory. Anyway, Kit would often whip up this meal when it was her turn for KP duty at the fire station. It’s meaty and filing and blends all the flavors so folks who “work” for a living appreciate the hearty meal. If you’d like to learn about how Kit and Derek met, grab CRASH & BURN. While it is book 2 in the Moonstruck Wolf “series,” all the books are stand-alone if somewhat interelated because I cross pollinate my Wolves. It’s a small world, after all. Anyway, click on pic or the title or use the QR code and you’ll crash on over to Books2Read where you can find this book and all the other stand-alones and the on-line stores where they are available.