Warrior Beetle: Rain and Potatoes and Cakes That Are Green

So first, dear reader, I must address the Fig Bun issue.

FIG BUN UPDATE

I figured that these would go down pretty well. Not epically. But pretty well. And so it was with a fair amount of resignation that I packaged up the buns to be delivered to my Lovely Librarians on Tuesday. I even had a conversation with Mum about whether I should even pull a Beetle Bakery, or whether I should just force her to eat them all. In the end we decided on Beetle Bakery, and I sent in the less "brown around the edges" of the lot. And crossed my fingers.

You can IMAGINE my shock and delight when Mum, on coming home Tuesday night (once she physically grabbed the remote and stopped me (!!!) watching the season premiere of Pretty Little Liars so that I would listen to her instead of staring at the TV with my mouth open) reported that not ONLY had the buns been received favourably, they had been DEVOURED and LAUDED and LOVED.

Well. You can imagine how pleased I was. And how fetchingly I blushed.

ALSO.

Our household guardian (HG for future reference), Ralph is, I think I mentioned, replacing windows in the dining room and living room. The house smells like paint and wood shavings and there are books EVERYWHERE MORE THAN THE NORMAL PSYCHOTIC AMOUNT because we had to empty and move the bookshelves that are of course in front of Every. Single. Wall. In. The. House. So this morning Ralph showed up and on whim I yelled from the library did he like Fig Newtons. (Don't let the flannel shirt and tool belt fool you - Ralph is a total foodie, and one of my best guinea pigs.) He responded that he LOVED them. Whee! Still in running gear I skipped into the kitchen and presented the tray of fig buns with a flourish. You SHOULD have seen his eyes light up. It was amazing. But given that he had what I think was a power drill (?) in his hands, he said he'd take one on his way out. I went back to stretching and was in the shower when he peaced out for the day due to exorbitant amounts of rain. When I came down, Mum informed me that he had specifically asked for one before he left, and that he had taken not just one but three. This pleases me greatly. I will await his judgement with baited breath upon the morrow.

So for the time being, FIG BUNS FTW.

And yes, it is biblically raining outside right now. But pretty and biblical. So when the house uproots and floats down the mountain I will be gazing serenely out the window thinking "Wow, everything looks so green and fresh." right before the end. There are better ways to go I suppose. HOWEVER the fun thing about pretty rain is RAIN WALKING which I did this afternoon. I am currently without a raincoat of my own (Target . . . I'm looking at you . . . ) so wore what used to be my raincoat when I was in 6th grade and now is Mum's raincoat because after 6th grade I told her that it was huge and also bright orange and also lined with orange gingham and that I would rather soak to the bone and die of pneumonia than wear it in public again. That's the raincoat I wore today. Over a running shirt, fleece, and running parka. With my headphones. It was an epic rain walk and I enjoyed it immensely. Upon returning I realised two things: 1. I really had to pee. 2. I had not realised how wet my pants and socks and wrists were. And so what should have been a calm ending to a gorgeous bright green tramp through countryside full of deer and foxes and geese and bunnies (no, seriously, I saw all of those things today, I'm not kidding) turned into a frantic strip to my undies, swearing quietly, hopping from one foot to the other, followed by a naked dash through the labyrinthine book passages on the dining room floor and up the stairs. Poor cats. All they wanted was to say hello and maybe get some lunch and what they got instead was a whirlwind of expletives and sodden spandex. I gave them extra treats, don't worry.

Moving on.

Remember when I said that Mum wasn't a huge tofu fan, but that she loved edamame? It's ok if you don't, I just reminded you. Dinner last night arose from me rooting in the freezer for an ice pack (love you too, running) and realising that, somehow unbeknownst to both of us, we had accumulated enough frozen edamame to singlehandedly prop up the Chinese soybean market for a year. What I had thought were garden peas were edamame. What I had thought was spinach was edamame. What I had thought was puff pastry was edamame (it's a colourful package). You guys, it was time to make edamame. Also to make a sign and tape it to where we make shopping lists that reads in all capital letters WE DON'T NEED EDAMAME. NO REALLY. WE DON'T.

Pretty much the entire contents of our freezer apart from Ice Packs.

So obviously I don't need to tell you what dinner last night involved. What I can tell you is that it was a Beetle recipe, that it was delicious, albeit a little thrown together and scraptastic, and that even though it involved a food processor, it was actually very simple.

POTATO AND EDAMAME CAKES (or BURGERS? I don't know, you decide)

You'll notice, perhaps, that I have eschewed the word "croquettes." This is because I went to boarding school. If you went to boarding school, then you understand what I am about to say. The word "croquette" will forever and a day evoke a mental image of a mass-produced-frozen-then-reheated lump of something probably involving instant potato flakes and maybe a meat-based substance and very possibly fake cheese. I am unable even to TYPE the word without visions of years and years of these floating through my mind's eye. Oh I ate them, dear reader. We all did. Everyone who went to boarding school in New England in the late 90's early 00's will know EXACTLY what I mean when I say "Broc Chix." Yep. I ate my WEIGHT in Broc Chix. And I loved every single bite. However, hindsight is a bitch when it comes to "food you ate your weight of in boarding school" and that includes tuna melts for lunch every day for four years and enough Marshmallow Fluff out of the jar that the dining hall manager once (I am not making this up) offered me his daily insulin.

BOTTOM LINE, YOU GUYS, THESE AREN'T CROQUETTES.

I will eventually just rename this blog
"Gratuitous Amounts of Potato Pictures."

I used red-skinned Fingerling potatoes (more purple coming this weekend yaaaayy), cutting them in half and leaving them to steam whilst I went upstairs, changed into sweats, and did some yoga (and yes I did run down halfway through Standing Head to Knee to check on them, I'm not a complete reprobate). Once they were done I mashed them up good and proper with some olive oil and salt, keeping skins on, obvs, and set that aside.

Which is also a super cool band name.

Edamame post food processor.
Kind of like the Incredible Hulk had an accident.
But at least his protein levels are up.

I knew that even with sticky potato awesomeness holding everything together if the edamame were in original bean form the cakes would disintegrate in the pan and I'd be left with a massive mess. (A delicious one, but still a mess).Therefore, they were placed in my adorable little food processor and pulsed a few times.

Then it was pretty easy to combine potatoes and edamame mash, and, yay, using hands, super fun kindergarten throwback, and form them into cakes (or burgers, but not croquettes).

Cute, no?

It's true what they say. Cornmeal makes everything better.

I thought about baking them in the oven but I wanted a little bit of a sear on the tops and bottoms, so I got the pan ready with olive oil, and dredged (yes, word love) them in a bit of cornmeal before giving them a quick fry, three or four at a time. And that did the trick quite well.

Best of all was the inevitable flake-offs that got all crunchy in the pan as the cakes cooked, THAT was the best by far.

Crunchy salty potatoey edamamey cornmealy awesomeness.

I left the extras on a baking sheet so when Mum came home all she had to do was give them a quick warm in the oven. AND one carton Fingerlings plus one package Edamame made about 12 decent sized cakes. So you know what that means, dear reader.