Pinned It! : Waffle Hashbrowns

So I've been skimming Pinterest for some time now and I've gotten some really great ideas for practical projects, some common sense solutions (why didn't I think of that?) and some really awesome inspirational photos to keep me motivated! I've especially been living on the food boards, looking for new ideas in the kitchen!

I tried no less than 3 different cooking ideas I saw as pins on Pinterest last week. First was a totally quick food project for the 5 year old's preschool 4th of July party-- which I had forgotten about until 8 pm the night before. I had to make do with what was in the pantry. Thankfully, I found this pin and was able to more or less get something similar that we could bring the next day.



Memorial Day Pretzels by www.cupcakesandcashmere.com

Item number 2 was this pin that I was very excited about as I've had 3 beets hanging around the fridge for a week from our last farm box delivery. I've never eaten a beet that didn't come out of a can before (and can I say ewwww!). I was hoping that making chips our of them would take away some of the fear of the unknown for me. I even bought a new mandoline slicer just for the job ($20 @ Target!). They looked great going into the oven but they were a TOTAL FAIL!!! Half of each chip was getting too brown and the other half wasn't crisping. I ended up with a mix of overdone and underdone chips (with about 3 actual chips being done correctly). I think I might have sliced too thinly or perhaps too unevenly?

Baked Beet Chips by http://acozykitchen.com

Last night was pin #3. I saw this pin several weeks ago-- sometime before Father's day I know because I was thinking of doing these for Hubby. But, I made him a chocolate cinnamon roll from SmittenKitchen instead. I've been thinking about this since then but it seems like too much effort for breakfast (I really don't like anything more complicated than microwaving or toasting in the morning). So, yesterday when we were looking for a sidedish to go with our burgers (with homemade whole wheat buns but that's another post...) I thought it might be a good time to give this a try.



Waffle Maker Hash Browns by http://www.justgetoffyourbuttandbake.com

Overall, I thought it was a success. I spread my shredded potatoes fairly thin-- the Hubs likes his hash browns more crispy than not. The results were nice mix of brown crisp squares and soft white shreds. I used 3 medium potatoes and got 4 not quite waffle sized patties. I only sprayed some oil on before the first batch and there was NO sticking what-so-ever! If you have a well-seasoned waffle maker, you can probably go with no oil at all.

My Waffle Hash Browns (about 1/2 way done cooking...)

We all agreed that it worked pretty well. Since I have a very small waffle maker, it did take some time as each person's patty had to be cooked individually. But I really liked that I didn't have to stand and supervise a tempermental pan of hot oil (and clean up the inevitable mess afterwards). I would definitely try this idea again but I think I would instead try a larger portion of potato, cooked longer. I'd also like to try a mix of vegetables-- I think sweet potato could be interesting here and I have a zucchini patty recipe that uses shredded squash and onion and I think mixing that with the potato (or on its own) would be worth trying. I'll let you know how it goes!!

Anyone else try something they saw on Pinterest recently?? Comment below!