Sunday Potato Cakes, eaten on Thursday, blogged the next Sunday

Poverty is over! Simultaneous paydays mean our kitchen is now a positive cornucopia overflowing with delicious ingredients. Overflowing also because we lost our fridge, Tricity Bendix, to an icebox catastrophe this week. She has been replaced by "Coolzone", a decidedly uncool substitute, who is not only huss, but has considerably less storage space. Boo, hiss.

A mourner who enjoyed Tricity's hospitality for a time in November sent us this epitaph:

Sweet Tricity Bendix
You left me
chilled, crisp and condensated
I want to warm your heart
but you are a box of ice...
no love for me

No love for me.

RIP

Today's recipe wasn't actually part of the pyramid scheme, but it was sent unsolicited by gorgeous Golden Crocodile so seemed worthy of a write-up. It's for using up leftover mash, and we wanted to make it so much that we actually engineered to have vegetarian bangers and mash the night before. I've been housebound all week writing a draft of my thesis, so I whipped this up for lunch for myself on Thursday, and saved the rest of the mixture for a pre-dinner snack for Dave later in the day.

Here is the recipe in Polly's own words:

Sunday Potato Cakes

These savoury cakes are an excellent way to use up leftover mashed potato. I had a bowl of leftover mash from a dinner where it accompanied vegetable gratin along with venison and red wine sausages (surprisingly well priced at Pak n’ Save). The basic idea is you bind the potato with egg, a little cheese and the flavouring of your choice. I think herbs are nice to add a bit of colour to the cakes – but it really depends on what you have available. I served these up for a Sunday snack with a terribly trashy sauce of Greek yoghurt mixed with sweet chilli… It was quite satisfying.

2 ½ to 3 cups cold mashed potato

2 eggs

Fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped (any fresh herb will do)

1/3 cup grated cheese (parmesan is nice if you have it)

Splash of vegetable oil

Turn your oven on to 150C. Slightly beat the eggs and add the salt, pepper, cheese and herbs. Stir in the mashed potato only until the mixture is the consistency of very thick porridge.

Heat up a small amount of oil in a saucepan and drop big spoonfuls of the batter into the pan. Wait until they are bubbling on the sides and a little set on the top and then, using a small fish slice, flip them over. This is quite tricky if you are a hasty person – you must be patient and wait until they are cooked enough on one side to withstand the flip. When they are golden brown pop them in a pan in the oven to keep warm while you fry the rest. You may need to add extra oil between batches, and it definitely helps to use any oil but olive oil or butter, as these types burn easily. Serve with whatever sauce takes your fancy.

I imagine that these cakes would also be good with fish stirred though the batter and a squirt of lemon juice on the top.

NB If, after you fry the first cake, you find that the mixture isn’t binding, feel free to add a couple of tablespoons of flour. I didn’t have any problems but some people have odd things happen to them in the kitchen.

I had half a can of tuna in the fridge so I took Polly's advice and mixed it in, which worked very well. I didn't have any fresh herbs, so I chopped a few spinach leaves and mixed them through for colour, and added a few dried mixed herbs for flabour. There was no sweet chilli on hand for the terribly trashy yoghurt dip, so I spread each cake with a little sweet lime pickle, which is delicious on pretty much anything. Dave was very pleased with his post work snack, even if he did suspect me of more procrastination, and the daylight savings springtime sun streaming through our window bathed them in beautiful golden light for the photo.

Ahhh.