I had some left over mashed potatoes and I was out of groceries Sunday morning so I made some latkes, one of my favorite breakfast treats! Traditionally they are made with shredded potatoes rather than leftover mashed potatoes, but I don't like leftovers in general and this still works.I used:
about 3-4 cups of cold mashed potatoes
1 large beaten egg
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter
What to do:
Heat a skillet over medium heat and added some butter to the pan to coat it. Add the potato mixture to the pan as you would if you were making pancakes and cook until golden brown (about 2 min on each side) flip, flatten with a spatula and place on a paper towel lined plate to get any excess butter off and keep them from getting greasy and soggy.
I like these served with ketchup like Waffle House hash browns, but they are traditionally served with sour cream or apple sauce and are delicious that was also!
I realize that my house is no "dime piece" as Sara Jane would say, but slowly, slowly, I am trying to make it feel like a home. It's a cheap rental house I share with three other girls and although I am only going to be here another year (two total) I want it to feel as warm and inviting and pretty as possible in the time that I have here. Some may think it's a waste of money because it's only a college house, but I think making people feel at home in a clean homey environment is worth the small costs here and there and it provides me with a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment as well. I also only purchase things for this house that I'm sure I will use for years to come if they are any investment at all. Anyway...A few days ago Clifford came over and helped me finish painting the mud room that Suzanne, Mary E, and I started a few weeks before. I'm ashamed to admit that it took so long to finish up and that the room was in shambles in the meantime. We painted it Olympic's "Chilled Mint" for a soothing, cool neutral tone. If I owned this house, the laundry list of things to paint and improve would be gigantic, but I am restraining myself from spending all of my money here. This room (and the rest in the house for that matter) looked like what one would expect from a college rental house: dirty, used to be white, but now more of a sponge painted effect with dirty hand prints, and most disgusting of all....smashed bug marks. I'm fairly certain I gagged when I first saw that! A fresh coat of clean paint does WONDERS for a room! I feel like it's a new house compared to the one we moved into a year ago.
This may not qualify as a house improvement project itself, but I just wanted to show off my most recent acquisitions of home decor! This is called a "knob stopper" and we sell them at work. I think it is so cute and it reminds me of the 1880's farmhouse I grew up in in Shawnee, GA with crystal knobs on every door and it is for sale now here, perhaps I should buy it back?
Here's another fun find from work that I picked up. It's a cookbook stand with iron chains with an iron ball hanging from each one to hold the pages down and keep the cookbook open to whichever page you are viewing. It's nice for cooking and also for the times when you just want to display something pretty...for instance, this vintage Better Homes and Gardens cookbook which used to be Mama Bertha's (my great grandmother who was famous for everything domestic, lovely, gentle, hospitable, and kind) and I treasure it for its sentimental value and because it is also beautiful and delightfully old fashioned.
Another feature of this house that is somewhat flawed is our converting of a living room off of the kitchen into a fourth bedroom. It works well except that there is no closet in that room (Suzanne lives in this room and has to use a hanging rod as an external closet) and there is a little window cut out from the kitchen into her bedroom. To make it into another bedroom, she put up a board to cover that window and had to do some shifting of doors in the kitchen to close it off. Above is a picture of the board...not the prettiest but an effective solution. Also, it is used from some extra storage and I thought it would be much nicer (and more private for Suzanne!) if if were covered up somehow. So....
Mary E, not knowing she was giving me an idea to remedy this, mentioned that you could use cloth napkins of handkerchiefs as a no-sew curtain for small awkward windows. I got to thinking how perfect that would be to use as a sliding curtain so we could get to the storage but cover it up and add privacy and more pretty color to the kitchen. I went to Walmart, bought some ring clips and a set of red cloth napkins, slid the rings onto an ugly rod (but it works for my purposes now) that I already had laying around the house and ta-da! Instantly covered and better! I'd like for the teal on that board to not show, but we will be painting the kitchen a pale lemony yellow as soon as my free paint from glidden.com comes in, so maybe I'll give that a good coat too so it will tie in rather than looking like an accident. 
Couldn't help including more red from the kitchen towel and the new oven (which we've had almost 6 months now), but I can't explain how thankful I am for it! It saves us so much money compared to our ancient one we had before.
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