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!
Cookies!
I’m a returning student, so my husband and I are perpetually broke, especially at the holidays, since it’s right between semesters. A couple of years ago, in desperation, we hit on the perfect solution to our “so many people we love and so little money to shop with” problem: baking!
We (and yes, he helps) bake cookies for 10-14 days leading up to Christmas, turning our kitchen into a small bakery. We wind up with at least 3 gross of cookies, although the cookie list has been growing as word spreads, and this year we have about 30 people on the hit parade. And we don’t stick to just one or two types, either… We make at least 8 different kinds and give an assortment.
Did I mention I also work full time while engaging in this insanity?
Homemade cinnamon rolls! There’s nothing like the scent of the rising dough and then the hot, cinnamon/brown sugar/butter odors wafting over the sharp tang of evergreen when the house is fully decorated. I LOVE holiday food.
Second favorite is the southern sweet potato casserole make with Karo syrup, butter, and marshmallows—and sweet potatoes. 😀
I think my fav has got to be my Mom’s homemade applesauce.
My favorite holiday cookie is Seasame Seed cookies!!!
I forgot to add my husband’s rum balls.
I like the moon cakes (minus the greasy egg) for the Lunar New Year.
Crepes on Christmas morning. We use an electric crepe maker and it STILL takes way longer to make them than for us to gobble them all up, but it’s worth the work.
I love mulled mead and mulled cider. I only get them at this time of year. One of my friends has hosted a Christmas party the same way for 20 years. She has sugar cookies all ready on the baking pans. We decorate them, bake them and then eat them with mulled cider & mulled mead (for those who aren’t driving) & exchange gifts.
I could happily live on decorated sugar cookies. I usually have a ring of green sprinkles around my mouth for all of December.
I love Dutch holiday baking: Spekulaas (cinammony cake/cookies with almonds) and Kletskopjes (lacy cookies my mother makes to both eat and hang on the tree as ornaments). And currant bread with a core of almond paste. And Banket (almond paste wrapped in puff pastry. And the traditional chocolate letter Sinter Klaas leaves in my wooden shoe. Good thing I’m heading to the Dutch store this morning—I’m getting hungry!
And contrary to my security phrase, I *could* come up with 95 holiday foods I love.
Hot cider and hot chocolate!!
Christmas cookies are my favorite holiday food….especially sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees.
Mom has a family recipe for Christmas cakes. There’s raisins involved, I can’t remember the other ingredients offhand, and it never smells like Christmas is coming until the first batch comes out of the oven. (Though I have to confess I hate the taste. So does half the family. Fortunately all around, everybody we give these to adores them, so we have an excuse to be baking them all month.)
Homemade sugar cookies with powdered sugar icing. Always reminds me of mom. We made and decorated these together every year until she passed away when I was 17.
scrtsbpal at yahoo dot com
Chicken satay. My mum’s recipe calls for loads of brown sugar, so it’s the sweetest dish ever. Fastest one gone every year too.
Mimosas on Christmas morning. That counts, right?
Cookies! Just about any kind, but at the holidays you have to have spritz and gingerbread and rumballs and, well, you get the idea. I’m off right now to drop off three batches for a kid’s party tomorrow—gumdrop “chip,” cherry snowballs, and chocolate brownies. Mmmm.
Nut and Poppyseed cake. Struedel, actually. My Nana made it every christmas. One year, my mom sent me to stay with Nana specifically so that I could write the recipe down. She (my mom) was really annoyed when I came home with the written recipe, which included things like “cook until it is done”, or “one sifterful of flour”. But, hey, that’s how Nana taught me to do it!
I love eating a good jelly doughnut for Chanukah!!
Christmas candy! During my student days, I’d take advantage of my winter break to make Christmas candy (divinity, fudge, caramels, peanut butter cups) 24/7 for weeks. Now I still get 1 1/2 weeks off between Dec 23rd and New Years, and my teacher-sister does as well, so we spend a week candy-making and baking at my parent’s house. I can’t wait!
Traditionally, we always have a decadent breakfast for Christmas. Growing up, this was quite often donuts, although lately it’s been bread pudding or stuffed French Toast, maybe with bacon or sausage on the side and some hot chocolate.
So hard to choose! For food-food… I guess I’d have to go with cornbread dressing; no matter which side of the family we’re visiting, someone usually makes it for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it’s *delicious*. However, when I think about Christmas food, I can’t help but remember the huge variety of cookies, fudges, and candies (divinity!) my maternal grandmother made when I was a child. I think I looked forward to that smorgasbord of sweets more than the real holiday meal, back then!
Horseradish whole grain mustard sauce that goes with the prime rib I make every year. It is so good.
For me it’s all about the Christmas goose. Mom used to roast one with the turkey. The goose would keep the turkey from getting too dry. It was the best!
If it’s Holiday time, it’s gotta be fig cookies! We use the recipe out of the Joy of Cooking and they are by far the highlight of the season. My Christmas morning breakfast has consisted of fig cookies for two decades now. OM NOM NOM. :d
Nanaimo bars! Which I’ve since learned are a Canadian thing. But they’re so yummy!!
Two words: Christmas Cookies
Hands down my Great-Grandmother’s corn bread dressing.
That stuff is like crack, so yummy! Since she passed away in ‘93 the recipe has been passed slowly down the family tree and finally made it’s way into my hands this year, which means THE PRESSURE IS ON YA’LL!
The decorations that are supposed to go on the Christmas cookies but somehow end up in your mouth before making it there always taste the sweetest. 🙂
My mother makes these chocolate mint cookies. Gooey chocolate cookies with an Andes mint melted on top. I think I gained weight just thinking about them!
My Christmas food is Log Cabins!
Mashed Potatoes rolled in egg yolks and crackers and deep fried.
It’s only made at Christmas because it take two days to make! (plenty of leftovers though 😀 If you’re gonna spend two days making something, you’re going to make a lot of them)
The combination of flavors of Roast Turkey with my Jalapeno cornbread sausage stuffing and cranberry sauce followed by a bite of my creamy stuffed mushrooms…heavenly
Pebernødder! My family isn’t actually Danish, but my grandpa was (he was actually my mom’s stepfather, but he and my grandmother had been together since my mom was a kid), and the two Danish foods that happened to stick in the family were aebleskiver and pebernødder. Pebernødder are, apparently, a traditional Danish Christmas cookie, and that’s certainly when we always had them. They’re fantastic, very hard and spicy and best when eaten with strong hot tea (or coffee, if you prefer). The name means “peppernuts”, because they’re made with white pepper. So good. They’re the only food that I instantly, immediately, entirely associate with Christmas.
My mother’s peanut butter cup candy. I grew up helping my mother make these every holiday season.
for christmas we all celebrate at my parents home and my mum always makes this cake with dried fruits and other little bits in them..well the cake isn’t the best part….hihi now the sauce..that is the best 🙂 you just have to drown the cake in the vanilla-rum sauce that comes along!!!!
My favourite holiday food is mashed potatoes with gravy. I am such a carb girl. Sigh.
I don’t know if I’m more excited about the possibility of winning a Kindle or a $25 gift card!
My favorite holiday treat is chocolate fudge! OMG, NOM. I can remember when I was a kid, planting myself in the chair next to the candy dish and just going crazy eating it. I still make it every year and it’s still one of the most popular treats.
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I might eat 89 pieces of fudge this year if I choose not to share!
I love, love, love, traditional Scottish Shortbread. Not the whipped fluffy stuff (although that’s good too!). So much butter in there, you’re in danger of heartburn! Hmmm… must get baking….
The Christmas food tradtion I love and long for the most is my mom’s Egg-Sausage souffle, which has been a Christmas-day -brunch tradition in our house for years and years. Many, many eggs, tons of cheddar cheese, mild sausage…mmmm! Coronary-inducing cheesy goodness!
My mom’s side of the family is from the Netherlands, and they make something called ‘olie ballen’ that are my FAVE thing about the holidays. I think ‘olie ballen’ translates into something like ‘oily balls’, but whatev. They are deep-fried deliciousness.
For me, it’s just not a real holiday meal without a pecan pie. I grew up in West Texas and there were several pecan groves out there. My grandmother also had a couple of pecan trees in her yard so we always had fresh pecans. She made the best pecan pies & german chocolate cakes I have ever tasted.