Loaded Potato Cakes

Tonight I am getting ready to go out of town for a few days.  I'm busy and don't really want to cook, but there are leftovers in the fridge.  What do I do....not enough for a real meal.  I open the door to the fridge and look at what is there.  My eyes come to rest on the bowl containing the leftover mashed potatoes.  There isn't much, maybe a cup.    I pull them out, open the dish and debate, do I throw them away, or....then inspiration struck!

Potato Cakes.  I haven't had potato cakes in a long long time.  So I grabbed the ingredients and went to work.

Since there wasn't much to accompany them, I thought why not spiff them up a bit. I have bacon, onion, cheese...so let's load 'em up!

Since I just pulled these together on the fly, I don't have a recipe, but will do my best to describe my steps so you can make your own loaded potato cakes.

Loaded Potato Cakes

 Ingredients:

 1 cup leftover mashed potatoes
1 medium egg

Mix the egg and the mashed potatoes together until well blended.  It will be a little runny, but that's okay, we'll fix that in a minute.

Next, mix in:

1 Tablespoon finely chopped onion
4 Tablespoons of crispy bacon bits
1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Mix with a spoon until all the ingredients are well combined.

Now is where the measurements get iffy.

Sprinkle 2 Tablespoons of all purpose flour and stir until blended.
The mixture should be like really stiff mashed potatoes and hold together well.
Continue to mix in the flour 1 Tablespoon at a time until the mixture reaches the desired consistency.

My mixture was not thick enough to handle and make patties, but it was thick enough I could separate it into two "globs" in the bowl and easily move one at a time into my small frying pan.

In a non-stick frying pan, add about 1 Tablespoon of butter and 1 Tablespoon of olive oil.
When hot, place one of the mounds of potatoes into the hot oil and mash it into a patty with the back of a spoon.  Fry the potato cake until it is crispy.  Carefully turn the patty over and cook until crispy on the other side.  Repeat with the second patty.

Feel free to adjust the mix-ins to fit your tastes.  My results were as good as any loaded baked potato could be.  Serve with a dollop of sour cream along side and you've got a hit!

....and that's What's Cooking at Cathy's ~ Enjoy!