Patta Cake, Patta Cake

 Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man, bake a cake as fast as you can. Roll it and pat it and mark it with B and put it in the oven for baby and me. My gramma taught me that little nursery rhyme a long time ago and it applies today. Most of us have splurged and bought ourselves an air fryer. Mine is the simplest but rated the best and it doesn't have fancy dancing all over it like little windows and baskets and layers. It does the job. When I got the AF and put it on my already busy counter top, people said "Oh no, not another small appliance!" and at the same time, I wondered about that myself. I love gadgets. Many of them go to the Thrift Shop after a time, but this gadget has become a pal. Living on one's own demands strong nutritional attention to avoiding prepped foods that come in adorable little packages that boast at least an inch of additives on the label. Skip those, they have been sitting around for weeks on the store shelf and who needs a bunch of chemicals in the mix. One gem, I picked up the other day, a dip that supposedly had "cheese" in it, had a bestbefore date well into the next year. What? If it lasts more than a year, what is it doing in my fridge? And where else has it been?  How to make sure, you are getting the freshest, best nutritional value from your loonies these days is a challenge but going fresh can't go wrong. Especially if you are an elder living alone. Today I am going to try something quick, easy and new to me. I'll call them patty cakes because that's how they'll look when I pop them into the air fryer. My dandy tiny hot pot has, crammed into it, a couple of peeled potatoes,  carrot slices, onion, celery leaves (I don't throw all of them out because they give marvellous flavour), small broccoli florets, and some of my deck grown spinach leaves. Sprinkled on top is my own mix of herbs with just a touch of sugar (my mother's secret ingredient in everything she cooked) and some water for steam. Boiling vegetables is passe. When the rooties and leaves are reasonably tender, I'm going to mash them with some butter, salt and pepper and an egg. I might just toss in an extra egg and add some bread crumbs made of the left over crusts in the freezer. I don't believe in waste so my freezer accommodates little packages of these left over bits that could end up in meat loaves or soups or stews or hey, patties.  I will form patties and coat them with olive oil, some that is sitting in a little bottle with bay leaf and garlic staring out at me from its depths.  Perhaps I should roll them in some buttered bread crumbs and then, put them into the air fryer. AND hope they turn out yummy. If they do, they'll make a full meal: protein, veggies and all. Last night, as an experiment, I cut up a pork steak and did it in the air fryer, and wow. How easy is that? Air fryers are really only tiny convection ovens with high heat simulating a frying pan. Very little grease necessary. Patty cake, patty cake...