jkath, Middie has come up with a reall winner idea here...
One of my Mom's old "recipes" that were never written down, you just sort of make it by "eyeball"...
Audeo will go nuts on me if she sees this, but I would suggest "regular" (ie "fatty") ground beef, undrained, that you can use flour/starch (pick your poison!) to work up an "in the pan" gravy...adding a diced onion, finely sliced carrot "rounds", peas (as late in the cooking process as practical), veggie stock to "water" your gravy mixture...what the heck, toss a bit of grated garlic in there with Worcestshire to accent it...
(This still gets a bit "mushy" or "bland"...)(you might consider some spicey BBQ sauce or even "eek!", A1 Sauce or the like...you'll remember that its you eating it, not me!)
Anyways, over mashed potato's, perhaps you'd make them the "fatty" method, too, drained red potato with a goodly dollop of margerine/butter and a quarter cup of sour cream, a scallion skinned and finely diced, or 3 or 4 green onions, split and finely sliced, mashed all together...
I'm not "big" on rice...but can see this served up over boiled and buttered wide "egg noodles"...sort of a "Poor Man's Stroganoff"...
Pretty quick and easy to make; tastes great; reheats well and hardly expensive...
If you "put up a scene" on what a "struggle" it was to do this, you might be able to mentally beat hubby and offspring into at least "assisting" with the cleanup...(snickering!)...
BTW, the mashed potato thing is rated "outstanding" in our home, as a "stand alone" thing, where no gravy is on offer, but I expect that everyone in the Free World already knew that...
Lifter