Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, it’s time for day three of the Smart Bitches Hanukkah Festival!
Today’s prize is pretty awesome. But first, I’ve been asked for the Sweet Potato Latke recipe I mentioned yesterday. Ahoy, here it is, and the giveaway is below the fold. It’s a good thing to hold with one hand, while eating latkes with the other hand.
Sweet Potato Latkes
Makes about 24 latkes. Adapted from Taste of Home Magazine.
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp sugar (I used Splenda bc I’m out of sugar. Worked fine.)
2 heaping tsp curry powder (MORE SPICE BABY YEAH)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp brown sugar
1 heaping tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (like hotter with slow burn as you take another bite? Add more.)
1/4 tsp pepper
scant 1/4 tsp dry mustard
scant 1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs beaten (Kinky!)
1/2 cup milk or Lactaid or milkish product of your choice.
4 cups grated peeled sweet potatoes
oil for frying
Mix the dry ingredients (flour through mustard). Stir in eggs and milk until blended. Add sweet potatoes and fold with a spatula or your fingers to coat thoroughly. Keep scooping from the bottom of the bowl to make sure there is equal potato/goo distribution. The goo contains the flavor!
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. I used enough vegetable oil that it was probably between 1/3 and 1/2 inch deep in the skillet.
Drop heaping tablespoonfuls into oil. Let set for about 30 seconds, then press gently with the back of a spoon to flatten out. In my big honking skillet I could fry about 6 or 7 at a time.
Fry for 3-4 minutes per side until golden brown. Add more oil if you need it.
Drain on rack covered with paper towels. Try to avoid eating while they’re piping hot (ow. Good luck with that).
NOTES:
I tried making bigger than heaping-tablespoon size, and they were soggy in the middle, so keep to the smaller size for browned, crispy latkes with chewy centers. The batter will get soggy at the bottom so stir every now and again to mix the potatoes with the wet stuff. Remember: the goo contains the flavor!
We’re serving with honey mustard, chipotle mayo, drizzled honey and whatever else I think will taste good.
Happy Hanukkah!
And now: Ahoy! Contest the third!
On the Third Night of Hanukkah, Smart Bitches Gave to Me: A Generation Two Kindle, and a $25 gift certificate to Amazon!
Just leave a comment below, and tell me your favorite traditional holiday food (Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Kwanzaa – Eid is over, but is there traditional food for Hijra? – and you’re entered to win. Comments close in 24 hours, but fear not, there’s another book – paper or digital – giveaway coming soon. Because Hanukkah lasts for eight crazy nights, and I have more latkes to eat. NOM.
Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Reading!
YUUUUMMMMMM! Latkes! With sour cream…..
The holidays mean RUM and Peppermint (not together, of course!).
Rum cakes, rum balls, peppermint bark, Hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps or rum…
of all the foods we love and enjoy at Christmas the one thing I still want most, still dream of most are my mother’s Christmas sugar cookies- we would all sit around the table and decorate them while listening to Christmas music- they were just crispy enough to be spread with a soft icing and sprinkles – nothing has ever tasted that good since- nothing ever matches the flavor or the warm memories trapped in those cookies-
Yo!
A Christmas Leg of Lamb is most tasty 🙂
Definitely not fruitcake. lol
It isn’t a typical traditional food, but we go to my Mommy’s house after opening gifts Christmas morning, and she makes eggs benedict. That’s my fave!
My favorite Christmas cookies are not actually Christmas cookies but my family have always made them for the holidays, and I know we’re not alone. They have way too many alternate names—some call them snowballs, some call them Russian tea cakes, some call them Italian (or Mexican) wedding cakes. They’re so easy to make that even I can’t screw them up, and there’s an alternate version made with cocoa that’s ridiculously delicious!!
For my family, fondue is a HUGE family Christmas tradition. We have a spread of oil fondue with chicken and beef, 2 different cheese fondues with crusty bread, apples, baby carrots, cauliflower, pears and then of course, the ever so important chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows, bananas, pineapple, brownie and pound cake squares.
It’s such a big deal to me that after my grandma died, people in my family just didn’t want to go through the effort and cost of doing it. So at 19, I broke out my fondue pots, cut up all the meat, veggies and fruits and did it myself. Traditions are meant to be carried on even when someone passes. Unless you don’t like the tradition, then feel free to make your own, right? I can’t remember NOT having fondue and even the few Christmases that I wasn’t able to make it home, I broke out my own fondue pots and had my own melty gooey fun.
Monkey Bread (very kinky;-)
This Christmas is the first time the little one will be allowed to eat any. Boy he’ll be up for HOURS.
Monkey Bread!
My Aunt Monika’s chocolate-peanut butter fudge, she only makes it for Christmas and it is wonderful.
My mom was very close to her Aunt Trotie, who died when I was pretty young. Apparently, Aunt Trotie had a bit of a wicked streak, that has been inherited by many of us. She left a recipe for some biscuits, that are absolutely divine; light, a bit sweet, fluffy, best warm out of the oven, but they make a bitchen’ turkey sandwich the day after too.
My mother routinely makes triple and quadruple batches during the holidays, because all seven of her grown kids will stand around waiting for these to come out of the oven, and literally snatching them as they are emerge, getting our hands slapped in the process. We’re now aged 32-43, and will knock the grandkids over to get to these. My parents have been divorced for 22 years now, and my dad is remarried, but if we take these to his house for Christmas, he gobbles them up.
And, in honor of Aunt Trotie and her delicious wicked streak, we proudly announce these to all guests every year; have some of Aunt Trotie’s Buns! And then, we giggle, ever so slightly, since we know she is giggling along with us…
Delicious recipe! As far as my favorite traditional holiday food, I’d have to say tamales—my family makes them every year just before the end of the year. Yum!
ANY kind of Christmas cookie!!
broccoli casserole, fo sho. man, my mom makes this every year, and forget the broccoli or the cheese, it’s all about the crumbled ritz crackers on top just DOUSED in butter. merry christmas!
In my family there is a tradition of making home-made Irish cream. The recipe is good sized so there is always some left for New Years! I know that it’s not technically a food, but that hasn’t seemed to stop the family from considering it the most important item to be made for the holidays! It just wouldn’t be Christmas without a big bottle of extra strong, home-made Irish Cream.
Sarah you’re made of awesomesauce! 🙂
My favorite traditional holiday food is mashed potatoes and turkey.
My favorite traditional holiday food (well, it’s a tradition in our family, anyway): Mom’s homemade waffles, using a recipe from an old Woman’s Day cookbook. A heavily involved and recipe involving egg separation and three mixing bowls, as well as butter and sour cream; these are not low-fat waffles, but they’re scrumptious and freeze well.
My favorite holiday food is kind of cliche, but those peanut butter kiss cookies are the best. But only when made by my mother. Every year we have a huge cookie sale at our church (imagine fifty old ladies baking non stop for a week, and then the cookies are gone in about three hours), my mother always bakes the peanut butter kiss cookies, but she has to hide them otherwise there will be none left to sell. It makes for a great game, see how many cookies you can eat before mom notices. yum.
food38- the number of peanut butter kiss cookies I eat before my mother realizes that her cookies are disappearing.
My Grandma makes the best Kolache cookies every Christmas. Because we are from Illinois, with absolutely zero Czechoslovakian relatives we probably pronounce it wrong…we call them “Klotchies”. My dad hates them so he always called them “crotchies” heh. So sly, my dad.
It’s not the holidays without my grandma’s pecan pie. Yum! 🙂
Hmm, I kinda like leftover the next day. Something about cold chicken and mashed potatos that’s comforting.
My favorite holiday treat is peanut butter and chocolate layered fudge!! I make it for all of our family and friends as gifts.
My mom isn’t much for baking but she makes these delicious shortbread cookies with jam on top every year and every year I get sick off of them.
Spinach holopchi are also delicious when made my my baba who makes them bite size and bakes them in cream.
There are two Christmas Cookies from the old edition of Joy of Cooking, known as “Stars” “S’s” in my family. They didn’t make the cut into the newer editions, because they are made with 8 egg yolks or great amounts of butter. The stars are made quite thin, a cut out cookies, and the letter cookie is made with snakes of dough. All very time consuming and hands-on, but evoke childhood Christmas Eve for me. (We were a family that opened presents on Christmas Eve, with cookies.)
My mom would love this! Thanks! 🙂
And my favorite holiday treat? Let’s go with Scotch-a-roos (? Is that the right spelling? Probably not. haha. Oh well!) I love them all the same. 🙂 And candy canes. The fruity ones.
i don’t really do the “traditional” holiday foods because I don’t like turkey, ham, or fish. in my family, the traditional Christmas meal is turkey and/or ham and lasagna, so my favorite is the lasagna.
I love Christmas cookies—lots of varieties, lots of chocolate…mmm!
My favorite has always been the pecan pie I make myself.
Italian cookies, my Mom’s patchwork cookies and eggnog! And I’m not normally much of a sweets eater. 😉
Thanks for the fun giveaways!
Rinda
A new favorite for Christmas Eve. My sister in law from Texas introduced me to tamales with chili. Surprising and Amazing.
For me, it’s gingerbread cookies and fudge.
Microwave Magic Fudge!
I am a Trinbagonian. (Native of Trinidad and Tobago) The holiday season is not complete without Black Cake( bring on the alcohol content) and Ham and sorrel. Yum Yum.
Butterhorns. Family’s been making them for the holidays before we came over from Germany. (Like twelve generations – yah they are that good!)
Chocolate covered cherries. They might be available year round, but I only crave and enjoy eating them in the month of December. I also enjoy the crab dip that my mother makes every year. So good on Ritz.
My mother’s deviled eggs. There’s always a race to see who can get to them first (or before they’re put out on the table).
My mom’s Christmas cookies. Though I don’t know if she’ll be making any this year since she’s gone gluten free.
Sounds delicious.
Chocolate. Crinkle cookies. For some reason, these were only made at Christmas by a good neighbor.
Spritz cookies—an almond flavored sugar cookie with sugar sprinkles. I would always make at least one that had every type of sugar sprinkle in the house on it. Looked like a complete blob, but was pure sugary goodness.
Christmas cookies are my favorite holiday food. For me, it’s not so much the eating of the food but the making of them. My best friend and I get together every year and bake for an entire day. This will be our 23rd year doing this – we started as teenagers and only missed one Christmas together for baking. We make about 20 different kinds of cookies and pass them out to everyone we know.