Sweet potato/squash Fritters

I apologize for my lack of posting this past week, we have been super duper busy with the kids starting new sports and finishing up basketball all in one week, it was a blur.  Also we recently bought a mini-van which was time consuming.  Buying a new car is kind of a pain.  There is so much more paperwork involved then I remember.  We have had the same awesome car for over 8 years, but sadly it was really no longer fitting our families needs.  I have never been so excited about cargo space and sliding doors in my life, I am officially a grown up....sigh.
Anyways after a taxing week of car buying and shuttling kids to various sports, these little sweet potato fritters were truly the highlight of my week.  These pictures do not do these puppies justice.  I mean holy sweet and savory cow these were amazing.  Maybe I was just starving but seriously I could have single-handedly eaten all of these, but sadly I had to share with the husband.  Plus I wanted to have some leftover to enjoy the next day.  This was tough my friends, I wanted to eat them ALL.  They barely made it out of the frying pan, I mean I didn't even get a picture of them fully done because well we ate them up and after my food coma simply forgot to take a picture.  So I had a bunch of sweet potatoes and butternut squash leftover from my prep day last week, for whatever reason I cooked up too many and I need a good way to utilize what was left so they didn't go to waste.  You could really do these a number of ways but I chose to utilize what I had on hand and came up with these.  Serve these alongside of some yummy steak or fry up some eggs and put on top of them the following morning for breakfast (thats what I did anyways and I can vouch for its awesomeness).  These didn't particularly hold up like I thought they would, they were still awesome but next time I might experiment by putting some almond meal in them to possibly make them less flimsy, until next time though try them out this way  and enjoy them even in all of their flimsy glory.

Ingredients:

• 2-4 tbsp of coconut oil ( just keep it around if you have to do them in batches)
• 1 shallot finely diced
• 1 red bell pepper finely diced
• 3-4 large sweet potatoes (cooked first until very soft, then cooled to handle them)
• I did 1 large sweet potato and about 1/2 of a cooked butternut squash as this is what I had on hand, next time I will probably do the 3-4 sweet potatoes instead though as I prefer sweet potatoes
• 1 egg
• salt and pepper enough to taste

Method:

Cook the sweet potatoes either in the microwave (just faster for people like me who don't always think ahead) or bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour until soft.  Make sure to cool them enough to peel them and put their mushy innards into a bowl.  Add the shallot, bell pepper, egg and salt and pepper.  Mash it all up either by hand or a lovely potato masher.  Now melt about 2 tbsp of coconut oil in a large non-stick skillet.  Here is where you get your hands dirty, roll a small handful of the potato mixture into a ball and flatten in between your hands (think crab-cakes or hamburger patties, flat)  fry them in the warmed coconut oil for about 3-5 minutes per side, basically until they are easy to flip.  You will probably have to do these in a couple batches unless you have a massive skillet.  You may have to adjust the cooking temp of the burner during the process as they may get too hot, don't despair if there is a little char on them though, they are super yummy this way, like caramelized yummy.  Cook them until they are not too mushy.  Hard to explain when they are done, you will just know.  Eat them when they cool off a bit unless you are impatient like me and willing to burn your tongue to get a taste.  Disclaimer I am not responsible if you do this and get burned...  :)  Enjoy!!