Damned if I was going to Trader Joe’s AGAIN this night.
I’d been twice the day before and once already this morning. It’s not like I can’t make a list of items I need. I do. But for some reason it’s never the right list. I’ve gone on a big Sunday evening shop for the upcoming week only to arrive home and realize we’re practically out of milk. And milk was the one thing I didn’t buy because I thought we were stocked up.
And now it’s dinner time. AGAIN. I could play the “I could make that, if only I had this” game, but now I’m just annoyed with myself. No more. I would make due with what I had.
Which was a bagful of red potatoes from the farm stand, some celery, some red onion, and, miraculously, an unopened bag of panko bread crumbs.
A quick Google search led me to potato croquettes. One in particular stood out, which included Panko, which are Japanese-style bread crumbs. Why I can run out of milk but have a stash of Panko is just, I guess, part of my quirky charm.
I riffed on this recipe, adding finely diced red onion and celery:
2 cups chilled mashed potatoes
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1/2 cup flour for dredging
1 cup panko
3 tablespoons veggie or canola oil for frying
salt and pepper to taste
In a bowl combine the mashies, one egg, onions and celery, salt and pepper. Lightly beat the second egg and place in a shallow dish for dredging. Likewise put the flour into a separate dish for dredging. Divide these into eight or so portions and make into balls or discs, or shapes, like this gal did. Dredge these puppies in flour, then in the egg, then cover them in panko.
Fry ’em up, until golden brown. A couple of minutes on each side.
I added a bit of shredded Mexican cheese to the top, because I had it. Nom!
Yes, we are talking about simple potato croquettes here. Anyone with any experience in the kitchen can make these. They’re the kind of thing you make to use with something else, an element of a larger, more impressive meal.
But again here I must point out that the very knowledge that there were potato croquettes in the world did not make itself known to me until deep, deep into my adulthood. Croquettes? How do you spell that? Croquettes. With mashed potatoes? Huh. Wow.
Let us also focus on these two benevolent facts: I used only what I had in my kitchen, and I improvised — successfully and to the upside. You need to give me at least 10 points for that. Really. Because when does my improvising ever lead to anything good?
Finally, and come close and let me whisper this in your ear: I made mashed potatoes from scratch. And they were awesome.
Gryffindor: 10 points.
Tart up your croquettes with red onion and celery
The boy, now a tween and 4-inches taller than me already and consuming ever more amounts of food, eagerly sampled some, then jumped up to high five me.
“Put that on the list!” he said. He ate three of them. The Drama teen ate hers as well.
I made a little tomato and cucumber salad too (and this time I had the sumac), which they happily ate.
Obviously not a food photographer. But do kids care?
Best of all – BOTH kids requested this the next day. Unprecedented. And since I had leftover mashies it was easy-peasy.
House of BHC: 50 points!!
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Yum!
You could also if you have on hand a can of salmon to make the croquettes. That is what my Mom made over 50 years ago.
It looks like mashed tabie Croquette heaven! I just had a thought (a dangerous pastime, I know) that I could maybe possibly substitute potato for cauliflower for a low carb version… I just might try this experiment. Thank you for the inspiration!
Um, yeaaah… it didn’t work out- TA DA!!! I almost took a picture for you but it was just too gory. Granted, I don’t have panko but tried to use soy flour but I just tried badly. You and the potato win!
Yay! You did it! See! In the flow….Congrats!