You all want to come over for breakfast, don't you?
Given my recent praise of the weather for its hot breakfast facilitating benefits, I feel it might be time to let you in on another of my winter morning food pleasures. But before we go any further I feel I should say that I am someone who doesn't recognize certain foods as being just for breakfast.
Actually, no, that's not quite what I mean. What I am trying to get at is that I don't believe breakfast has to be made up of what is commonly thought of as 'breakfast food'. I think this is because I spent nearly eight years as a flight attendant, and would frequently find myself wanting a bowl of noodles, or a burger, at, say, seven a.m.
Thus I regularly feast (in cold weather) on these vegetable patties first thing in the morning, and I eat them with eggs (sometimes poached, sometimes - as today - fried) and Branston pickle. I actually put Branston in them as well, which I know will cause some people to class them firmly as 'not breakfast food'. To them I say: "Fine. Enjoy your cornflakes. But consider these for lunch or dinner at least."
My favourite thing about these patties is their crisp and golden crust. But my second favourite thing is that you make them with leftover vegetables. In fact, sometimes I cook extra carrots, potato and swede just to be able to make these. They seem like the sort of thing I should have been brought up eating (but wasn't - which I think might be because there were five of us in the house, so there was never leftover anything), yet are interesting enough to eat that I would happily serve them to guests.
You could vary these endlessly: add chopped leftover green beans; use different herbs; coat them in breadcrumbs if you don't have cornmeal.They are so simple to make that once you have, they will soon become a part of your regular meals.
Have you got any similar leftover-based dishes you recommend? Leave a comment and I'll try them out!
Cheese and Pickle Vegetable Patties
You will need:
About 750g (raw weight) of potato, carrot, swede, sweet potato etc., cooked and cooled
2 tbsp flour
2 heaped tbsp Branston pickle
75g grated cheddar
approx 3 tbsp chopped parsley
chopped red chilli, to taste
5 tbsp cornmeal (polenta)
- Put the cornmeal in a shallow dish and set aside.
- In a large bowl, mash the vegetables until smooth, though with a little texture remaining. Mix everything else in well, and season with salt and lots of pepper.
- Form the mixture into thick patties - I make quite large ones - and dip each side into the cornmeal, coating the patties well.
- Heat a little oil in a pan and fry the patties for about three minutes each side. Serve immediately with extra parsley and chopped chilli. Delicious!