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!
My grandma’s peanut butter balls! Chocolate covered peanut butter in balls! What more could you ask for!?!
My mum’s latkes & potato nik, which she makes as a giant pan-fried latke, and are soooooooo amazing with sour cream & ground black pepper. Dinner on Sunday cannot come soon enough.
Happy Hannukah! I haven’t had my latkes yet and it makes me sad…soon…
My favorite holiday dish isn’t traditional to a holiday but more to my family. My grandma always makes Syrian food on Christmas Eve, and I look forward to it all year long. It is the ULTIMATE in delicious. 🙂
Chocolate chip peppermint cookies! May have to make some this weekend with the predicted snow to get me into the holiday spirit.
I’m not jewish but when my children were in grade school the school gave as much attention to Hannakah as Christmas so the first night of Hannakuh I would cook a pot roast from an authentic jewish recipe and serve it with latkes. I’m a little late this year so I’ll cook it tonight just for my husband and myself. Getting hungry just thinking about it!
Mmmm… that would be the mashed potatoes made with sour cream and chives. Now I gotta go home and make some.
I love Pumpkin Pie. It reminds me of fall, Thanksgiving and there is alway pie at Christmas. MMMM in fact, I think I want some now!
The real question is what holiday foods AREN’T my favorites…. Well, two of the best holiday foods are cranberry ginger upside down cake (if you’ve never had this, find a recipe and MAKE IT NOW!) and peppermint bark. However, I’m with you, and potato latkes are delicious, especially right from the pan!
My family is of Norwegian descent, but we don’t particularly follow any Scandinavian traditions EXCEPT that we eat lefse, particularly around Christmas. I love lefse, so that would be be favorite holiday food (although I also love my best friend’s latkas; I’m rarely home for Hanukkah, though, so I haven’t had them in years).
Thanks for the terrific giveaway!
The sweet breads my mother makes for Christmas morning. Swedish cardamom coffee cake, stollen, and cranberry-walnut bread, usually.
Mmmm, everyone’s making me hungry! My favorite is cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, with gravy over both.
Sufganiyot! There’s nothing like a jelly (or chocolate-filled) doughnut on Chanukah!
I love Candy cane white chocolate cookies 🙂
And shortbread cookies with maraschino cherries on them 🙂
My grandmother sends us bags of peanut-chocolate brittle for Christmas. I’m always afraid it’s going to tear the caps off my teeth but it’s soooo gooood. I have to make sure I hide a bag away before my dad gets to it, though. He’s all “it’s from MY mother blah blah blah :eats it all:” and I am left with tears and crumbs. NOT THIS YEAR, DAD.
Spritz cookies with white and silver decorative sparkles.
My favorite holiday food, which is only made for Thanksgiving and Christmas, would be my grandmother’s Carrot Casserole. It may sound a wee bit strange but it is oh so delicious. It isn’t terribly hard to make but for some reason, I only get to enjoy its deliciousness on holiday’s. Maybe that should be change. lol
Eggnog. God, I can gorge myself on the stuff, and I have to try to pretend ignorance of the OMFG calories. 🙂
Happy Happy Hanukah!
well, its not really a traditional Christmas food, but every year me and my cousins make a “gingerbread” house. but we make it out of chocolate. so the house is kit-kats, the lawn is icing and we cover it in decorations of smarties, rolos, whatever And we always make a chocolate car. the house is always super ugly and no one ever eats most of it but its so much fun!
Of all holiday food, I love best Easter bread—it’s a sweet slightly spiced egg bread.
If we’re restricted to winter holidays, then it’s the Christmas prime rib, nom nom nom.
And have you ever noticed that candy corn is irresistibly delicious during the month of October, and completely disgusting the rest of the year?
I love a good reason for a fresh apple pie and a holiday is a good reason.
Snowball cookies for Christmas. It isn’t Christmas without them!
Hi, my wife told me to post here for a contest. I hope that doesn’t count as cheating and stuff.
Hmm… Favorite traditional holiday food, does Bailey’s count as a food? If not, here’s a story about my favorite Christmas cookies when I was a kid – every year my grandmother would make these chocolate cherry marshmallow cookies and mail them to us. I’m kinda surprised now that they survived the postal system so well. For many years they were something I looked forward to receiving in the mail every December.
For the big holidays, my family always makes pizzelles (pronounced pit-sells). We have two pizzelle makers (kinda of like waffle-iron looking things) and make hundreds of cookies for our family and friends. If you’ve ever had a pizzelle from the store, TRUST ME, you’ve never had a real one. Cozy up to an Italian American family and grab yourself some awesomeness.
My favorite part of the holiday season is pumpkin, I love anything and everything with pumpkin in it. Particularly pumpkin bread pudding with butterscotch sauce and whipped cream.
Klejner, a.k.a deep-fried Danish cookies. So good!
Reading and latkes. You spoil us.
Well, tomorrow is Christmas Cookie Day at my house. But for the actual holiday, I make what I’ve taken to calling “the traditional S family Christmas Curry.” Because we like curry and it is usually just us and the kids on Christmas (Thanksgiving is the big family holiday in my family), so we can make what we want.
I like to grab the biggest, thickest Peppermint stick I can find ( we like big sticks, right?) and a thermos of hot chocolate and drive around looking at Christmas lights with my honey. There’s nothing better to accompany the ooohs and ahhhs and turn that ways of the hunt for the prettiest or gaudiest decorations.
As a child I associated Christmas with Chapati (Indian flat bread) and chicken stew. Years later, even though I can afford to eat it a little more often than just once a year, it still remains my idea of an ideal Christmas meal
I love the holidays and all the treats! My favorites would have to be my Mee-maw’s dressing (now made by my sister—the keeper of the secret recipe) and the Dr. Pepper jello salad my mom makes just for me. I’m smiling just thinking of the goodies I’ll have in a few weeks!
My favorite thing, hands down, is eggnogg. Homemade, of course, with plenty of farm-fresh eggs, cream, and bourbon (to ward off the salmonella, natch). And a champagne chaser…
My favorite holiday food is my mom’s peanut butter, chocolate chip & Hersey Kiss cookies. One of the best part of the holidays, by far, ‘cause she only makes them around this time.
Before my Grandmother passed away in 1999, she use to make these peanutbutter bars with a graham cracker base and peanut butter and chocolate on top YUM!
I’d love to be entered into the giveaway HAPPY HANUKKAH!
My very favorite, can’t ever skip it even just this once, holiday food is green corn tamales on Christmas Eve. Yum, yum, yum!
Some home made hot cocoa. <3
I am pretty much required to make fudge. My mommom’s original chocolate recipe has evolved to all kinds of flavors, and my friends and family demand at least peppermint bark, peanut butter and jelly, and pina colada flavors. EVERY YEAR.
My favorite would have to be Reindeer Treats. I think some people call them Muddy Buddies, but I hate the sound of that- they’re not dirty! My mom and I always make them together. It’s a mix of Chex mix, melted margarine and peanut butter, coated in powdered sugar. Love it!
Gingerbread! The chewy kind. Mmmm.
My mom makes these small sandwiches on wheat bread that are made with cream cheese and green olives mixed in. Soooo yummy. I usually also fix more pumpkin pies around Christmas, because I’m trying to get all the pumpkin I can in (I LOVE PUMPKIN).
Sweet potato pie!
Hell to the yes