Bacon Potato Cakes

The Feed Zone hits Northwest Arkansas 

 Bacon Potato Cakes, page 52

I'm so excited that this is finally happening! Brock, is cooking and eating his way through The Feed Zone too. I'm telling you, the athletes in NWA are giant FZ fans. He snaps way more photos than I and calls me Rebecca. He properly chose his family and a movie over bike hill repeats, will become a triathlete in just a couple of weeks and you need to follow him on Twitter. Welcome Brock!

 I accidentally discovered Dr. Allen Lim while looking on YouTube for an energy bar recipe. I never found the one that I thought was suitable or easy to make.  What I did find was Dr. Lim making boiled parmesan potatoes. Along with that I became fascinated with sports nutrition and began my search for healthy, natural (as possible), easy to make food that would make me healthier and fuel my new addiction of multisport.   Along the way I found a blog by Rebecca Nimrod called Cooking and Eating my way through the Feed Zone.

     After reading a few of her posts and thinking I had found the answer to all of my nutritional and fueling questions I purchased the cookbook.  I followed Dr. Lim, Rebecca, Biju, and Skratchlabs on Twitter almost immediately after creating my account @TeamCrankAddict. A few tweets later here I am guest blogging with Rebecca.

     Coincidentally, Rebecca and I live a short distance from one another and yesterday she offered to kick my butt (my words) while doing some hill repeats on the bike.  I didn’t bite, pardon the pun, my son aka Agent J, my wife Agent O, and I had a date with Men In Black 3.  But when I got home I began cooking on page 52.

     I like to gather all of my ingredients for what I’m cooking and have them in front of me so I don’t have to do any last minute searching.  Prepping the potatoes is pretty easy.  I washed and peeled them as you would if you were making mashed potatoes.  They were sliced and cooked on the stove top.  

    While they were cooking I prepped all the other ingredients and sautéed the onions on the stove. I like my onions more firm than most, and knowing they were going to be cooked in the dish itself I basically just warmed them up on the stove top. I also like a lot of onion but held back knowing Agent J was going to critique my work and he’s tough!

     I prepped the eggs and bacon and when the potatoes were done I mashed them in the pot I cooked them in. When you do this you want to leave some small chunks so that you’re not completely mashing the potatoes.

     When all of this is completed you combine all of the ingredients into a bake safe dish and bake.  My oven (gas) takes a little bit longer than most so I always add 5-10 minutes to the cooking time depending on the dish, so adjust accordingly.

    When they were done I checked by placing a long knife in the center and it came out clean so I knew they were done.  Now the fun part…eating!  I cut small pie like pieces because my baking dish was round and served it warm.  This dish was great!  I added sour cream on mine because that’s what I had on hand but you could also use a low fat or non- fat plain Greek Yogurt. I love cheese so I also added cheese to mine. If I have an excuse to add cheese to a dish I almost always do.  Enjoy!

('becca Rebecca speaking...I Love this picture. Sorry Brock, but the kids most always win. He's darling!)

Kitchen Action:

Lacking in Pantry Amazingly I had all the ingredients.

Additions subtractions or Changes: I replaced the “normal” bacon with my normal bacon which is low sodium (25% less) Turkey bacon. I prefer this and when cooking you can’t tell the difference so I try to go with the healthier option.

Try Next Time:  I would use a shallower pan or dish so that I could get the edges and bottom crispier.

How it scored: Agent J, who we all cater to, gave it 9 out of 10. As for me it was a solid 8.