Use it up bubble and squeak recipe from the Mindful Kitchen *ad* (2024)

Food

I was recently sent a copy of the Mindful Kitchen* to review. It is a lovely book filled with vegetarian recipes like bubble and squeak and when I looked through I wanted to make everything in it!

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Some of the recipes that jumped out at me included:

• Jerusalem artichoke risotto, which will be handy when I harvest mine in a couple of months! I can add it to my list of ways to eat Jerusalem artichokes!
• I also liked the idea of the cabbage chips recipe, which uses the outer leaves of the cabbage. However I had recently made something similar after going on my annual onion picking trip with the leaves/ tops from kohlrabi, carrots, beetroot and cabbage!
• Bubble and squeak! I had some leftover roast potatoes in my freezer and I still had quite a lot of cabbage left after my trip to the fruit and veg PYO farm. So I decided to give the use it up bubble and squeak recipe a go!

The Mindful Kitchen’s Bubble and Squeak recipe

Known in the UK as bubble and squeak, this dish was invented to repurpose leftovers, so don ́t feel restricted by the recipe. If you don ́t have potatoes and cabbage, try it with carrots, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, squash, or celeriac (celery root).

Serves

As many as your leftovers allow—you want a volume ratio of 1:1

Ingredients

• Leftover potatoes
• Leftover cabbage
• 1 egg (optional)
• 2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil

Method

1. If your leftover potatoes or root vegetables were roasted, baked, or boiled, mash them but keep on the chunky side. Or, if the vegetables can be shredded, shred into thin slices, otherwise chop thinly. Mix your vegetables and potatoes together. Mix in an egg to bind, if needed.
2. Melt the butter or oil in a skillet over medium heat. Give yourself a mindful moment to listen to the fat bubbling in the pan.
3. Add your potato-and-vegetable mixture to form one large “cake” or separate the mixture into patties. Let “bubble and squeak” in the pan for 10 minutes—you want a nice brown crust to emerge on the bottom. The time it takes depends on how much butter or milk you used to make mashed potatoes in the first place. When you have a good brown crust, flip the cake or patties and fry on the other side for about 10 minutes.
4. Transfer from the pan to a plate lined with paper towels to soak up some of the fat. Serve as it is or with a dollop of applesauce (page 170), sauerkraut (page 100), or a fried egg.

What I actually did!

I am so rubbish at following a recipe! I like to think of them as suggestions and a starting point. Although the recipe clearly says keep the bits of cabbage and potato chunky, I mashed them. That is for two reasons:

1. The potatoes I used had been roasted and frozen. The potato skins might have not been very nice if I hadn’t boiled (to reheat) and then mashed the potatoes.
2. I thought I might be able to get away with feeding it to my family if they couldn’t see any cabbage.

Next I mixed the potatoes and cabbage with an egg and put half the mixture in the frying pan after adding some olive oil. I left it for a bit and it started to burn! It was my fault because I hadn’t put enough oil in. So to avoid disaster I scraped it out of the pan and made some smaller patties which I fried in a lot more oil than I had originally put in. With the rest I made bubble and squeak soup and I also baked some of the mixture in the oven in an oven proof dish!

Bubble and Squeak soup!

Ingredients and method

• Use the same ingredients as above.
• Boil or steam the potatoes and cabbage
• Mash together the potatoes and cabbage and mix in an egg (optional)
• Add salt and pepper and put into a saucepan with some water. It is up to you how much water you add, depending on how thick or thin you like your soup.
• Eat straight away. You can’t freeze this if you have used leftovers, because this will be the second time you heated them up. If you can’t eat it all at once, you can eat it later cold.

Despite not having any stock in the soup, I thought it tasted really nice!

Making it in the oven

I put some of the mixture in an oven proof dish. I decided to do this based on my past experiences of burning frittatas in the saucepan and them turning out much better in the oven. It turned out quite well and I ate it cold over the course of a few days with my lunch! I think it would be even better if it wasn’t mashed though.

Ingredients and method:

• Follow the Mindful Kitchen ingredients list and the first point on the method. Then put the mixture in a greased oven proof dish!
• Cook it for around 40 mins at 180 degrees C.
• Either eat straight away or leave to cool and eat cold over the next few days.

I enjoyed trying out this recipe and although it didn’t quite go to plan and I didn’t end up feeding it to my family, I discovered some new inventions instead! I’m looking forward to trying out some more recipes from the book. There are also some lovely little snippets at the bottom of each recipe, which I liked. They talk about environmental issues and help us to be mindful of the cooking process.

You can pick up your own copy of the book here: Mindful Kitchen* . If you do buy it and like it – leave a review. Now that I have published my own book, I’m really aware of how helpful it is to authors to have people review their books!