Holiday Traditions New and Old

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!  Happy 5th night of Hanukkah!

The holidays are one my favorite times of year.  Mostly because it's okay to make and eat ridiculous amounts of cookies, treats and favorite holiday foods.  Hubby and I aren't particularly religious, but we do enjoy some of the traditions of both Christmas and Hanukkah and we've made some of our own traditions.

Note I cheated in this photo placing all the candles in the Menorah even though it's only night 5

Every year on one of the eight nights of Hanukkah we celebrate the miracle of lights by eating an entire meal comprised of homemade potato latkes.  This year Hanukkah and Christmas overlap so we have to be strategic about when we will indulge in this delicious meal.  I think it will be on Monday, the 7th night of Hanukkah this year.  Here's a peek at our latke feast from last year.  The photos are not the greatest, but this recipe is amazingly delicious.  It has a squeeze of lemon juice in it (to prevent the potatoes from turning brown I believe), but the tang from the lemon is what makes these little fried bits of goodness so delicious!

Last year I also made some Hanukkah sweets....cake truffles to be exact.  They are by no means a traditional holiday treat, but they are decadent little goodies that are fun to make and decorate and definitely bring home the spirit of Hanukkah.  You can use any type of cake and coating that suit your taste.  If you have not made cake truffles (or cake pops) yet I highly recommend them!

Also last year, I made Christmas red velvet and devil's food cake truffles.  They were a big hit and made it into this year's baking rotation.  Given the reviews, I think these will now officially be a staple in my cookie gift boxes.  Though technically not a cookie!  Don't hold it against me.  I have to give the people what they want.

The majority of holiday time in the kitchen is spent baking oodles and oodles of cookies.  I love cookies for a few reasons.

A. Cookies are delicious.
B. Cookies are fun.
C. Cookies have endless varieties, shapes, sizes and flavors to experiment with.
D. Cookies are portable.
C. Everyone loves cookies! 

If you don't love cookies, you might be an alien from another planet.  You might want to get that checked out.

I thought I would share a roundup of this year's cookie palooza as well as share some old favorites. 
The most requested and commented on cookies are my two holiday staple cookies, Ginger Snaps and Raspberry and Lemon Linzers.  In fact I can't recall a year where I didn't make these two types of cookies.  I don't want a revolt on my hands. 

And each year I like to try a few new varieties.  When I was at my Grandma's house earlier this year I spent some time going through her recipe cards.  I found a few old recipes that I remember having as kid. 

One was a recipe my Mom would make called Jam Tarts.  They are tender crescents of cream cheese based dough filled with boysenberry jam and dusted in powdered sugar.  Recipe coming soon!

I also decided to try a new version of the tarts and filled some crescents with Nutella, coated with pearl sugar and drizzled with chocolate. 

The other family recipe I tried this year is called Mint Sticks, or Mint Brownie Bars.  This festive treat has a brownie based a layer topped with mint frosting and a drizzle of chocolate on top.  Recipe coming soon!

Chocolate Truffle Cookies (pictured below left) have become a new holiday favorite as of last year.  These really are like a truffle in cookie version.  A great choice for chocolate lovers. 

All the goodies get plated to go off to my Aunt's house to celebrate Christmas Eve.  Below is a peek of the cookie plates ready to go for tonight!  And another plate will be put together tomorrow for Christmas Day at my Dad's house.  One can never have too many cookies!

Hope you all have a fabulous holiday filled with good company, good food and tasty cookies of course!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Kwanza!

Latkes!

The holidays are a time to indulge in those special decadent dishes that your waistline can't afford during your everyday life. One of our favorites is homemade Potato Latkes to celebrate Hanukkah. Unfortunately we were a little late celebrating this year and didn't have our latkes until the eve of Christmas Eve (Hanukkah ended on 12/8). But better late then never. They were delicious.


Latkes are potato pancakes fried in oil and are a Hanukkah tradition. Frying the pancakes in oil is symbolic of the miracle of lights. The short story is in 165 B.C. when Jewish soliders returned triuphant after battle to their holy temple in Jerusalmen that had been occupied by Syrian-Greeks, they proceeded to purify the temple through the ritual of lighting the Temple's menorah for 8 days. They only had enough oil for one day, but lit the menorah anyway. The miracle was that one day's worth of oil lasted for the full 8 days. For more details, click here.

I'm not Jewish, but my hubby is and I am happy to celebrate this thousands of years old tradition because I get to eat delicious fried potato pancakes. I found this recipe in the Gelson's Super Market newsletter the first year I started dating my hubby back in the late 90's. This recipe is fantastic and I think, hands down, is the best latke recipe I've had.

There are a few handy tips I'd like to highlight. Be sure to get as much liquid out of the potato mixture as possible. I put my potatoes and onion mixture in a clean thin kitchen towel and wring it out. You'll be amazed how much liquid comes out. Once the mixture is dry....place it back in your bowl and add in the remaining ingredients. I like my latkes small, thin and cripsy and golden brown. I take a large pinch of the mixture and squeeze out any excess liquid. Then I sort of flatten it out with my hand and place it in the hot oil.





I like to serve the latkes with a sour cream topping, though applesauce is traditional as well. In the early years I would make a whole Hanukkah meal, brisket, kugel and green beans to serve with our latkes. Now, we just have latkes for the meal. Who needs that other stuff?



Potato Latkes
Adapted from the Gelson's Super Market Newsletter

1 large onion peeled and grated
1 lb yukon gold potatoes peeled and grated
1 egg beaten
2 Tablespoons matzo meal (I add 1-2 additional depending on how wet the potato mixture is)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup (scant) lemon juice
Vegetable oil for frying

Combine grated potatoes and onions together. Place mixture in 2 batches in a thin, clean kitchen towel and wring out all the liquid. Do this a few times because there's a lot of liquid! Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Heat oil on medium high and drop about two tablepoons of mixture per latke in the oil. Press down with back of a spatula to flatten out. Fry about 3 minutes per side until golden brown and crispy. Place finished latkes on a wire rack placed over a paper towel lined baking sheet in a 200 degree to keep warm. Serve with Sour Cream Topping (see recipe below) or applesauce.

Sour cream topping:
Combine 1/2 cup of sour cream with 1/2 teaspoon of Lawry's seasoning salt and 2 Tablespoons of finely chopped chives or green onions.

French Fridays with Dorie: Potato Gratin

I have a pretty nice food processor. I've gotten quite a bit of use out of it over the past year...soup, pie and cookie dough, hummus, ground nuts and some other things I can't think of. My food processor has some fancy attachments to grate cheese and slice and dice stuff but I've never used them. Today was my big chance to finally use the slicing attachment...to get nice uniform slices for my Potato Gratin. After a lot of fiddling around, reading through the instruction manual that I dug out of the depths of our catch all drawer and some more fiddling, I am sad to report I could not figure out the attachment set up. So if anyone knows how to set up the attachments for a Cuisinart 11 cup food processor please leave me a comment!

I broke down and sliced my potatoes in 1/8 inch thick rounds by hand. At least I tried my damnedest. Some were thicker, some were thinner. What can you do? Oh, I know! Buy a mandoline or figure out how to use your food processor. Hmmmm. Maybe Santa will bring me a mandoline...but if I am so lucky, I will have to hide it from my husband. He has an unnatural fear of a bad accident involving fingers and a very sharp blade. But that's not what we're here to discuss.

Let's get back to the potatoes. Potatoes are the ultimate blank canvas in cooking. So many options. Cheesy potatoes, fried potatoes, buttery baked potatoes, creamy mashed potatoes, potato salad, crispy potatoes, potato skins, hashbrowns, latkes, potato soup, potato tacos (yes, there is such a thing--and they are tasty), roasted potatoes....all delicious, including Potato Gratin, this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe pick.


This recipe has just a few ingredients....heavy cream, garlic, salt, pepper, gruyere cheese and of course potatoes. You start by warming heavy cream with minced garlic and letting the garlic infuse into the cream. Meanwhile start peeling and slicing. Potatoes are layered in the pan, topped with salt and pepper and a few spoonfuls of garlicky cream....and repeat. I am guessing I had about 7 or 8 layers. Top it off with fresh grated gruyere cheese and bake at 350 for 45 minutes to 1 hour.


This was good. The potatoes drank in all that creamy garlic goodness and the browned gruyere cheese on top was a delicious accompaniment. Though it was good, solidly good, I was looking for another layer of flavor. Maybe a little bacon? Maybe a little cheese between the layers?

Along with the potatoes I made another recipe from Dorie Greenspan's cookbook, Around My French Table, Chicken Breasts Diable. Chicken in a dijon shallot wine sauce. Mmmmmm. Here's a preview. Will be posting more details about this dee-lish dish in the next day or two.



You can see what other French Fridays with Dorie cooks made this week. November is a mix it up month and you can make 1 of 4 different recipes which ever week you choose.

French Fridays with Dorie: Hachis Parmentier

How can you go wrong with meat and potatoes? This delicious recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan's new book Around My French Table. This is my first week cooking along with the new cooking group French Fridays with Dorie where we plan to cook and bake our way through Around My French Table. I'm excited to report this was a success!

I have to give kudos to my Hubby because he did most of the cooking on this one and I supervised because I'm recovering from some recent surgery. We were both a bit confused by the recipe as we chose to go with the "Bonne Idee" or "Good Idea" and used ground beef and beef broth rather than cube steak and homemade buillion or broth. It took a few tries of reading the recipe, or ten, and finally we managed to get things on track. It came together rather easily...or at least that's how Hubby made it look. I spent a lot of time fretting about what type of sausage to use. It just seemed counter intuitive to use Italian sausage...but that's what Hubby bought at the grocery store and I was relieved to find that it worked nicely, adding a great level of flavor to the ground beef. The final result was really tasty! It is a warm and inviting comfort food, perfect to serve for a fall or winter Sunday dinner. I look forward to making this recipe on my own next time. This will definitely be making a repeat appearence in our house. Mmmmmm.


See how other members of the group did with their Hachis Parmentier by clicking here.