Recipe 52 – Bubble and Squeak Cakes

My mum and I always cook far too much food at Christmas, and there is always plenty of leftovers. In previous years, the leftover turkey and stuffing always gets eaten in sandwiches (or by the dog!), and my mum and I are both particularly to a cold roast potato (or five) later on in the evening. However the leftover veg always ends up in the bin, which I’ve always thought was a particular shame.

This year the veggies didn’t end up in the bin however! I had found a recipe for bubble and squeak cakes to use up the left over potatoes and veg from your Christmas dinner. We mashed up the leftover veg (we had sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, parsnips and sweetcorn), and then added some left over roast potatoes and croquettes. These were all mashed for a while until everything was nice and mushy! We then fried an onion and some bacon rashers chopped into small bits, before adding this into the potato/veg mix along with some cheese and seasoning.

Once everything was fully mixed, I shaped some cakes with my hands, and popped them on a greased baking tray. Finally we brushed them with melted butter and let the oven do the rest of the work.

The cakes were fantastic – very tasty, and I was really pleased that I had finally found a use for the leftover veg. We ended up with about 20 out of the whole batch, and have frozen some too, so that nothing has gone to waste.