meat and potatoes

How is writing for “Matlock,” a meat and potatoes procedural, the same or different as writing for “Jane the Virgin,” which leaned on magical surrealism?

Her husband, she said, was a “meat and potatoes” kind of guy who adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned to cook Indian food for her mother.

She called her husband a “meat and potatoes” man, but - in an apparent sign of his devotion - said he now cooked her Indian vegetarian food.

There’s the satisfying meat and potatoes of exploration at Castle Ensis, with vertiginous balustrades and winding ramparts that cross over and under themselves in impossible architectural configurations.

With Letterman at CBS competing directly with Leno at NBC, two strains of late night were defined: the former’s forward-looking, oddball approach; the latter’s more controlled, old-fashioned meat and potatoes comedy.