Breakfast Boredom Rescued By Last Night's Dinner

We have been up at 5:30 am for the past three mornings, taking my husband to work. It's a temporary problem but still exhausting for the whole family. So, we come home half zombie and half starving. I have been trying to spice up breakfast to compensate for the fatigue and this morning, thanks to my mother-in-law, I hit one out of the park with some left over mashed potatoes. We are a potato loving family and I have often made my "Poor Mans Hash Brown" by just roughly chopping and frying potatoes for breakfast. However, during a recent visit, my mother-in-law told me about making potato cakes from mashed potatoes. I got really excited to try it. I had to look up the recipe and then, of course, I had to tweak it and make it my own. Here's what I came up with:

Mashed Potato Cakes

2 C. Mashed Potatoes (roughly)
1 Egg, well beaten
1/2 C. Flour (plus another cup for breading)
Salt and Pepper
1/2 Stick Butter
Vegetable Oil
2 C. Shredded Cheddar (or your favorite cheese)

In a bowl, mix your potatoes, egg, flour and cheese. In a separate bowl, stir 1 c. flour with 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper for the coating. Take a large spoon and scoop the potato mix, form a ball with your fingers and then roll in the flour. Once coated in flour, you can flatten into 1/4 inch cake and place on a plate. Repeat until your have formed appx 8 cakes. It will be easier to cook these if your refrigerate for about half an hour. Heat a frying pan over med to high high. Coat the pan with veg. oil and melt about 2 tbsp of butter with it. Your don't want to use all the butter at once because it will burn and the cakes soak up a lot.  Place fry the cakes 3 at a time so you don't over crowd your pan. Cook for about 10 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Add more butter as you need it. Set them aside to cool for about 10 minutes. They will be super hot!

So, next time you have mashed potatoes left over from dinner, don't throw them out! Put them in the fridge and you know they'll get used up at breakfast. Plus, you know this is a budget-friendly way to make your potatoes stretch a bit further.