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!
Sounds weird, but my neighbor’s m-i-l makes this thing called Pineapple Cheese Surprise – made w/pineapple chunks, cheddar cheese, ritz crackers, and who knows what else – sounds awful, but so yummy!!
Shortbread cookies shaped like balls like Russian tea cakes, except rolled in cinnamon and sugar instead of powdered sugar. They are fabulous.
My absolute favorite is the Bouche de Noel. I mean, it’s basically a giant HoHo that you frost to look like a log. Fantastic.
We’re not big on tradition, but my mom always pulls through with her amaaaazing candy cane cookies for Christmas. One of these days I’ll mimic her version perfectly.
I love cheesy hash brown casserole and fudge (not at the same time). 🙂
It would have to be a proper, steamed Christmas pudding with flaming brandy and then cream afterward.
By proper, I mean the one I make myself that is not from my Oma’s recipe (which I don’t have), but tastes very like it.
By flaming brandy, I mean pouring enough warmed brandy over the pudding that when you light it the flame shoots up by about a foot and the whole thing burns for several minutes. If I don’t nearly set my hair on fire, there wasn’t enough brandy.
(there is, I am certain, a pun about Kindling flames here, but I shall refrain from such frivolity)
I love this pudding. I love it at Christmas, and I love making an extra pudding to eat in June, when it’s winter here. And I love the leftovers, microwaved for breakfast on Boxing Day, with icecream. It’s one of those perfect foods – memory from my childhood, but even better in reality.
(and I get to make mine tomorrow)
Catherine
Security code is ‘expected97’. I’ve never expected that many for Christmas dinner, but that’s the number I tend to cater for…
My dad’s secret recipe for Trifle (well not so secret ingredient is that the sponge cake is soaked over night in brandy).
I can take or leave the turkey, the ham, and the prawns (Australian here!) but it’s just not a proper Christmas lunch without Trifle and lashings of cream
My favorite holiday food is the pies. Apple, pumpkin, pecan, peach, whatever!
Cheesy cornflake potatoes. I’m from the Midwest, where casseroles come in almost infinite varieties. Provided they include a can of cream o’ mushroom soup and cheese. The potatoes are merely a vehicle; cornflake crumbs, a garnish.
Lefse. They are kind of like Swedish potato tortillas. My mother and sister make them. Second best is the Swedish meatballs we have for Christmas dinner. Last my mother got snowed in Wyoming and didn’t make it home on time for Christmas and I nearly was stuck in atlanta. When I did get there, late on Christmas eve, my sister runs up me a.d wails, “tell me you know to make the meatballs like mom. does!” I said I did, and she flung her arms around ny neck and said, “oh thank god! Christmas isn’t ruined!”
Sweet potato casserole!
My hubby and I have a “traditional” Christmas dinner of our favorite barbecue mailed in from where we went to college! It’s such a treat!
My favorite traditional holiday food is cut-out sugar cookies with icing. I make them with my daughter every year and we like the time together and the very delicious cookies.
I have two…One is chilled pomagranate seeds a wonderful fresh taste in the winter. But if you have to have something ‘cooked’ I vote for mulled wine…the scent floating through the air says ‘Holidays” like nothing else.
My favorite traditional holidy foods would be cookies- sugar cookies, peanut butter, almost crescents, and chocolate chip. Christmas in my family is cookie time!
It’s a tie between sugar cream pie and bacon & sausage wrap. Those two items are always the first ones to go.
My Mom used to make Stollen every year to be eaten for breakfast on Christmas morning. Stollen is a German Christmas tradition—a sweet yeast bread packed with raisins, currants, those yummy cherries. And there was always a warm sugar glaze poured over the top.
Hot cross buns, so fresh from the oven they burn your fingers when you break them open to spread with good butter.
My favorite holiday food is my grandmothers Raisin Filled Cookies. Believe me when I say that even if you hate raisins you would love these things. She only makes them at Christmas because they’re fairly labor intensive but OOOOOH so good.
Every year I kick the hubby and kid out of the house, invite an old friend over and we make Swedish Almond Tarts.
Butter, sugar, flour, some more butter, almond paste, and more butter.
YUM.
We make around a hundred or so (everyone in the family wants extras to take home) and by the time I’m done, the kitchen is a mess, my hair is well conditioned (from the butter!), and I swear I’ll plan ahead for the next year…yeah, that never happens.
I adore apple pie during the holidays. I think it sets off Christmas dinner perfectly, and the leftovers make for a wonderful breakfast on Boxing Day morning. What? It’s got apples! Totally healthy holiday breakfast food! 🙂
Not traditional for anyone but my family, but it has to be the German Potato Salad that my aunt brings to every Christmas gathering. It ain’t Christmas without it!
Sweet Potato Souffle. Big yum.
There is no Christmas without The Dessert. And The Dessert is cloudberry cream (multekrem in Norwegian) – preferably with krumkaker on the side, though that is not absolutely necessary. (Krumkake is a kind of traditional cookie that is usually made for Christmas)
A traditional Finnish Christmas dish is rutabaga (aka swede, or Swedish turnip) casserole. However, rutabagas couldn’t be had when we lived abroad, so Mom substituted batata (aka sweet potato) for the casserole. These years we have both, but batata casserole (no matter how expensive the roots), is a must.
Another Finnish Christmas tradition is that we eat the same Christmas foods ALL THROUGH CHRISTMAS. And we begin the celebration on Christmas Eve, continue on Christmas Day, then on the Second Day of Christmas (or Boxing Day, if you insist)… Actually, maybe there’s reason to this madness. You cook up a whole lot before Christmas, and then you have a vacation from cooking for at least two days… Foremothers, I see what you were thinking!
Rice pudding. I haven’t had it in years. In high school I would spend christmas eve with my friend’s family and we would make stuffed shells and rice pudding. good memories.
your recipe looks great. I think i’ll have to try it out this weekend.
My favorite holiday foods are warm spiced cider and Tomato Soup Cake, just like my mother used to make.
Your Sweet Potato Latkes sound heavenly and I think I will make a batch for tonight.
I miss my Grandma’s traditional Polish coffee cake. Slightly sweet with a crunchy buttery topping and especially good with a slice of ham for that sweet/salty combo.
Miss Grandma, too.
It’s amazing how hungry I am this morning. I probably shouldn’t have read all the comments, because I have to wipe drool off the keyboard now…
Christmas dinner in our family was always turkey and stuffing, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade cranberry-orange relish…and watermelon pickles, which is actually pickled watermelon rind, and probably an aquired taste. But my heart (and hips) belong to the desserts: cakes, pies, Christmas cookies of all varieties, candied pecans, rum balls, huge molasses cookies called Joe Froggers, many varieties of cookie press cookies. The list continues forever. Yum.
captcha – age53. Don’t I wish!
For me, it has to be gingerbread cookies. There’s something about the combination of cinnamon, cloves, and molasses that screams Christmas to me.
Periogi handmade by my aunt for Christmas Eve- yum. Although the sweet potatoes look delicious.
Because my family is always late to the holiday gatherings, everyone else started serving hors d’oeuvres before we got there. We’re better about lateness now, but we stillserve those delicious little cocktail weiners wrapped in dough, and I love them because they mean that the holiday has really started. (Also, I’m usually starving by that time.)
Pumpkin cheesecake with a toasted pecan crust – I invented it for the friend who doesn’t do wheat. Pile on the whip cream baby!!
Gravy!! Gravy, gravy, gravy—I sing to thee! None of this instant stuff, the kind made from all the gooey brown bits left when the roasting is done, like I used to get when my mom used to make Sunday roasts. It makes dry turkey interesting, smooths the rough edges of stuffing, marries perfectly with mashed potatoes, and even brings out the beauty in that eternally awkward green bean casserole. *sigh*
I have tons (haha) of favorite foods from my own childhood, but what I look forward to most now with my own family (hubs and 9yo son and 10yo daughter) is a pomegranate on Christmas morning. My kids love them, and it’s become a tradition to the point the they’re asking me a week in advance if I’ve bought the pomegranate for Christmas.
The second favorite Christmas food is Guatemalan tamales. R and C are adopted from Guatemala, and R is just really getting into her heritage, so what better way than food! I’m horrible at making them (they’re time-consuming and messy and you trash the kitchen) but they’re pretty tasty!
I make these Italian cookies, they are just like Anise Cookies but without that Anise flavor (I use orange flavor instead).
My Great-Aunt Mary (ZiZi) used to make them at Easter and Christmas. The cookies are super yummy with coffee or tea, but I make them for more of a reminder of her and others that have passed. To me, having certain family dishes (food or dessert) on holidays makes it seem like they are still there celebrating with the family. It is a nice feeling for me. 🙂
Every year for as long as I remember, my granny makes pumpkin bread. It’s always meant the holidays to me, so much so that I’ve been making some myself ever since I was around 14
My SIL Apple Pie. She makes the BEST PIE EVAH!!! I’ve tried to duplicte it, but it’s never as good as hers. She has it and Thanksgiving and she brings it to my house for Christmas Dinner. Now If I could get her to make it all year long I would be set.
Surprise cookies! My mom used to make them every Christmas, and now I do. The surprise is a nugget of chocolate, wrapped in tasty cookie dough and covered by a pecan (or nut of choice).
We don’t actually celebrate any Winter Holidays in my family (I know, we totally suck. Reading all these comments is making my heart weep and my stomache growl), but every year we do drink hot chocolate with whipped cream, marshmallow and chocolate flakes (and with the chocolate chip cookies I steal from work :x), so for memories sake I’ll choose that 🙂