Unlikely Fritters: Recipe

I was driving home from work one evening, and I was trying to figure out what to have for dinner. On Thursdays, I get home long after the family has dinner, so I'm on my own. I typically have leftovers or an omelet or something I KNOW they wouldn't eat.

This is what I like to call "Night Before I Have To Go Grocery Shopping" cooking.

Ingredients:
One sweet potato, preferably all dried out and a leeetle moldy in spots -- Peeled and then shredded
One cup of cauliflower (frozen, possibly from the Reagan administration), microwaved with water until extremely soft (4 minutes?)
One egg
1/3 cup of peas -- leftover if possible
1/2 of a BRATWURST . Chop it as finely as is reasonably possible
A few TB of regular white flour

Sprinkle with:
a bunch of garlic powder (1 tb?)
a little less cumin (1/2 Tb?)
some paprika, because I have WAAAY too much paprika (you know how sometimes you go shopping and each and every week you buy the SAME 5 pounds of sugar and it starts stacking up? That happened to me with paprika)
A bunch of ground pepper (2 tsp, maybe)
some salt to taste

Mush it around a bit. If it sticks together in clumps, it's good. If it's all wet and floppy, add more flour. If it's all dry and crumbly, add some more egg or water or something.

In a littlish bowl, put about 1/2 cup of cornmeal (I used yellow, but you are your own person)
and about 1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs. I'd bet that crushed up crackers would work too, or just flour.
I added spices and things:
A lot more parsley (dried) than I planned (prob. 1/8 cup)
Salt
basil
I contemplated adding mustard seeds, but wasn't sure, so I drew the line.

Mush the veggie mix into balls (golfball-ish in size) and drop them into the crumb mix. Mash them together and make them flattish.

[Kate's Note: I tried today BAKING these. TWICE as awesome, fewer calories. Spray a cookie sheet w/Pam, place the fritters on the pan, spray the FRITTERS with Pam, and bake for 12ish minutes at 375, flipping once when the bottom browns.
ONLY 70ish calories per fritter!]

All this time, you've been heating the oil (I used boring veggie oil). It's -- I guess -- shallow oil. I'd estimate that the fritters will be up to their ankles or possibly knees in the oil. But no higher.

Drop them in (careful -- boiling oil is used to kill people in movies, you know) and let them cook until nice and brown and delicious on BOTH sides. You will have to flip them at some point. NOTE: Use a METAL flipping thing, NOT plastic. Please believe me on this.

Drain them on paper towels.

Serve with BEER! Just kidding. Wine is fine too.
ALSO: consider making some sauce:
equalish parts of HORSERADISH and KETCHUP. You DO know that's what "cocktail sauce," or "shrimp sauce" really is, right? It's totally true.

If you can make 12 little fritters out of this, they come to about 80 calories each.

And? Totally, weirdly awesome.