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 favourite christmas food is shortbread! It was always a holiday treat at our place.
My fav is my grandmother’s chocolate pie. It’s like a cross between a truffle filling and a custard. I think I’ll have to go home and make one now.
This is pathetic, but… My mom always used to buy these Hostess Christmas tree-shaped cakes. It’s the closest thing to a holiday tradition we’ve really ever had. I enjoy it, anyway.
My favorite holiday food is fudge with walnuts. Yum! As a matter of fact, I had some today!
I love eating and decorating shortbread cookies during the holidays, but I do eat them all year round.
The month of December is all about how many Tamales I can eat before the new year. Its the only time we either order or make them. I gain 10 lbs just thinking about them…
I love these cookies my mom makes with chocolate and club crackers. They don’t sound like they’d be good, but they’re delicious.
Chocolate Marshmallow Peeps! Save a step for s’mores!
Hmmm… We don’t really have anything traditional that we do, considering we’ve eaten Baja Fresh (ordered and picked up the day before granted) I’m gonna have to stay with the boring and say homemade cranberry sauce. I know, it’s mostly for Thanksgiving, but it works for any holiday. That or these carrots that are cooked down with brown sugar and apple juice.
Leftovers! Nothing better than foraging in an overburdened fridge the day after whatever and putting together a truly disparate collection of your favorite goodies. Even if I don’t cook the T-day dinner, a turkey will be sacrificed so that I can have at least one hot open-faced turkey sandwich with giblet gravy and some modified Canadian meat stuffing. Followed by p-i-e, of course, the first word I learned to spell.
The worst holiday food? Creamed salt cod served on the fast days before the big religious holidays by my Irish American mom’s family. I still remember it from my childhood, with shudders of horror..
my mother’s recipe for Chocolate Rum Ball cookies – suitable for ANY holiday (errrr, except for the No Alcohol Evah ones)
the combo of chocolate + rum is deadly, in the best sense
The only traditional food I eat at the holidays are black eyed peas on New Years. But I do love the annual Christmas cookie swap I have with friends. Always lots of yummy new recipes to try.
Fav food at Christmas would have to be my mums celery and apple salad with her home made mayo.. yum!!!
Traditional holiday food – gotta go with my Mom’s famous Potato Rolls and her Cranberry Salad….man I’m hungry…
Rabbi Joe Black has a song called “Sufganiyot” which has been stuck in my head, even though I’ve never had them. At least, it was stuck in my head until I saw the Candlelight video. I would have said latkes before, but now I’ll just say “Yum” and leave it at that.
My grandmother’s tamales are a yearly tradition for as long as I can remember. Along with the homemade salsa.
My favorite holiday food was my grandmother’s rum balls. They were so strong I felt tipsy just smelling them.
Every year we bake gingerbread and sugar cookies and then watch the lord of the rings, so for sentimental reasons if nothing else definitely those!
In my family we eat hot pot on Christmas Eve every year (actually, we call it fondue chinoise in Switzerland. Sounds more festive, don’t you think?;D) It’s great food, not very hard to prepare and all around great for the atmosphere=)
And fail for me for commenting on the wrong post *headdesk*
Every Christmas Eve, my mother breaks out her secret-of-international-proportions toffee recipe and makes a couple hundred pounds of it. I can hardly wait to eat myself into a sugar coma in three weeks!
Although my mom believed the evidence that Jesus was probably born sometime in the spring, she’d make a “birthday” cake at Christmas. I miss that.
And no, there were no candles. And since she didn’t know Jesus’ favorite flavor, she made her favorite (chocolate).
I will have to go with candy canes & egg nog. Yum.
My sister-in-law makes redonk kiffles and nut tassies during the holidays – I’ll have to ask Santa for a treadmill if I eat as many as I did last year – YUM!
My favorite holidays food is fruitcake. Which might make me the weirdest person on the planet, given that fruitcake is the “ew yuck” punchline of every sitcom’s Christmas episode ever, but there you go!
I celebrate Christmas twice, but I don’t have any traditional Christmas dishes, traditional for me that is. I do, however, have New Year traditions. Main dish is champagne, of course. But beside it there should be a number of dishes to feel really good about oneself. Several different salads, the fancier the better. My favorite is herring under a coat.
fillet of pickled (not fresh) herring is cut in tiny pieces and laid in a salad bowl. Then a layer of potatoes, a layer of carrots, a layer of boiled eggs, a layer of grated beets (all cooked) and mayo. Then again – herring, potatoes, carrots, eggs, beets, mayo. Then in a fringe for a night. yammy!
mince pies (very popular here in the UK)
I have two: Russian tea balls and Williams and Sonoma peppermint tree bark!
Braised cabbage! No, really. It’s fantastic.
My sweet potato latke recipe comes from Madhur Jaffrey’s World of the East Vegetarian Cookbook, and besides the grated sweet potatoes(or butternut squash which is just as good) it includes mung bean sprouts and chopped scallions, and is eaten with a Japanese style soy/sesame oil/rice vinegar dipping sauce. Really excellent.
My family luvs deserts so every holiday I make creamy cheesecake-pies (basically a no-bake cheesecake but lighter and 2x the yum) in a shortbread crust. We then top it with the fruit of choice.
Chocolate Oatmeal Drop Cookies! From my Grandmother’s recipe. (Commonly known as No-Bakes, ours have coconut and peanut butter.) MMMMMMMmmmmmmmm!
My favorite holiday food would be collard greens, mac n’ cheese, mashed potatoes, honey baked ham, and sweet potato pie.
My favorite Christmas time food is peanut clusters, I suppose you could make them year round since its just chocolate covered peanuts, but we only make them in the festive season in my house.
Glögg och pepparkakor, that’s mulled wine and gingerbread cookies for you who don’t speak Swedish
Latkes are by far my favorite holiday food.
My all time favourite holiday food are Easter Torrijas. It’s basically like your french toasts (I think), only you do it with a 2-3 day old baguette but I can’t find a proper recipe in english, sorry 🙁
Traditional holiday food? Hmmmmm. I’d have to say cranberry sauce. But my family doesn’t much go in for traditional food, so we always get Chinese takeout on Christmas eve.
We always make shrimp scampi and potato pancakes for Christmas, and I make chocolate chip biscotti for dessert – the whole tradition is the best part.
Leftover Halloween candy, bought on sale and stuffed into my face all at once. Oh wait, that’s not the kind of holiday you were talking about? *giggles*
My mom’s buried cherry cookies. To die for!