No Waste Begets Big Taste

Reheating left over mashed potatoes or polenta has never appealed to me. The texture is never the same as the first meal, so I prefer to turn them into something else for a new meal. No, you don’t have to throw them away! Reinvent them as fritters for zero waste cooking.

I had part of a peeled sweet potato that I wanted to use up, so I decided to cut it up and roast it in the oven to make baked fries. While I had originally intended to fry the fritters in a skillet, I figured I might as well try baking them instead because I already had the oven on. Less work for me. Score for simple meals!

Making Fritters

So, I mixed the mashed potatoes and polenta together along with an egg. Formed patties and baked on a greased cookie sheet. They probably took about 40 minutes to cook. I turned them over when they started to smell like fritters and had turned golden brown on the bottom. That was probably at around the 25 minute mark. Develop your intuition in the kitchen to start cooking without a recipe.

I had a little leftover brown gravy with vegetables, so I added some frozen corn to it and heated that up in a saucepan for a topping. Zero waste cooking means using what you have. You could top them with something else entirely.

I thought of this as a zero effort/no brainer lunch, but Michael thought it was so wonderful that I should tell you all about it. Had I wanted to invest another few minutes chopping an onion, I would have braised some greens to go with this dish to round it out further. I had considered adding a protein, but I decided that the fritters had enough between the egg, the cheese in the polenta and the butter and yogurt that were already in the mashed potatoes. A salad would do nicely too. It all depends on what you have and what you feel like doing to create a simple meal.

For details on the original meal containing grits and brown gravy, please read Shrimp and Grits next.

What do you do with your left over mashed potatoes or polenta?