I come by my fat ass honestly.

Oh my god, you guys, I don't know what my deal has been lately. I totally fell off the Weight Watchers wagon with the whole wisdom tooth fiasco, and now? It's like I have fallen into a very, very deep pit entirely lined with carbs. It all started with the apple cake my mom made when she was visiting (remind me to do a post on that, because it is INSANE). I ate boatloads of ice cream, which I never do, but it was the only thing that helped my aching jaw feel better. It was medicinal ice cream! Since I have been feeling better, I have--for reasons I cannot begin to explain--baked multiple batches of bread (with varying degrees of success), a loaf of pumpkin bread, Smitten Kitchen's peanut butter brownies (oh my sweet LORD, go make them immediately), and finally, POTATO PANCAKES. I... I mean, who do I think I am? I can't eat any carbs without my ass turning into a freaking balloon, yet these all seemed like good decisions to me? In fairness, quite a lot of the bread was pitched because it reeeeally doesn't keep well, and nearly the entire loaf of pumpkin bread is still sitting on top of the toaster. I also sent about 3/4 of the peanut butter brownies to work with Mark because I am physically incapable of refraining from shoving them directly into my gullet every time I walk through the kitchen; they are Schedule I addictive.

The potato pancakes, though. Maaaan, do I love me some potato pancakes. Let me explain--these are NOT your traditional latke. In fact, there are no shredded potatoes involved. Rather, this recipe came from my off-the-boat Irish great-grandmother who had 11 (!) children to feed. It's sort of along the lines of boxty, but not even that complicated. My mom was very close to her grandmother, so she used to tell my sister and me about her when she would make these potato pancakes for us. We have, however, modernized the recipe for the healthier times we live in now. Yup, now we use butter to fry the potatoey goodness instead of straight lard. Much better, right?

Here's the deal:  this recipe is intended to prevent leftover mashed potatoes from going to waste, but what it will really do is cause you to accidentally make waaaay too much every time you decide to make mashed potatoes from here on out. You've been warned.

So, for this recipe, you will need some leftover mashed potatoes (obvs), some flour, butter, salt, and pepper. That's it!

1.)  Dump the potatoes onto a cutting board or piece of parchment or waxed paper. You'll want something between the dough and the counter because you're basically mixing up some glue for yourself. Skip this step, and things will get REAL during clean up.
2.)  Spread the potatoes into a thinnish layer and sprinkle heavily with flour. I scoop the flour with a soup spoon and just keep adding until the dough is the right consistency. Depending upon how much potato you're working with, you'll need somewhere between 1/4-1/2 cup of flour. PRO TIP:  Do the potato mooshing with one hand and keep the other clean to keep sticking into the flour jar.
3.)  Begin lightly kneading the flour into the potatoes, folding the potatoes up over the flour and working it through. You'll know you have enough flour incorporated when the dough holds together and isn't super sticky anymore. Give it a little sprinkle of salt and pepper, because even perfectly seasoned potatoes are going to be kinda bland once you add in all of the flour.
4.)  Spread the dough out into a 1/4-1/2" layer and cut it into wedges or squares or whatever little shapes you want. You could even be fancy and use a cookie cutter, but that would result in waste, which would be SACRILEGE, much like spilling one's wine. *Gasp*
5.)  Heat a saute pan over med-hi heat and melt a nice lump of butter. Scrape the dough wedges off of the counter with a spatula and flip them into the hot butter, letting them saute until they're golden, then flip them.

6.)  Once they're nice and golden, that's it! Dust with a little more salt if you want, and enjoy. The tough part here is going to be sharing the delicious, golden goodness, but they're intense, so it's probably for the best.

You can thank me later. Well, somewhere between tasting them and needing bigger pants, anyway.