Friday, December 14, 2012

Here we are in December...

My goodness, here we are at the close of another year almost.  I can't believe it is only 10 days until Christmas.


So much has happened in the time since my last post, I went to New York for 6 weeks in mid September, having a wonderful time and even surviving Super Storm Sandy.  I arrived home and on November 6, my beloved Chihuahua Buster (Below), passed away, 2 days after my return home.  His older Brother, Nugget is just as devastated as I and merely a week after losing Buster to congenital heart failure, Nugget was rushed to surgery for a corneal (eye) ulcer.  He is doing great and, like me is starting to get back to feeling themselves after much sadness.


I didn't blog in New York, because, well I was having such a fantastic time eating my way around the city!  No, it was difficult as I was without laptop and to try and coordinate my photos/phone and borrowed iPad, I resolved to do some writing when I got home... Which as you may well understand, didn't happen.  I don't know how many people follow this blog or just stumble upon it, but it did feel strange to not write.  I felt like I wanted to share my feelings and what I was going through, but I was just feeling so numb I couldn't find the words - even to write about food.  So if my absence has been felt, please accept my humble apologies!

Now on with the food!

As it is Hanukkah and I am not Jewish, it made sense for me to make Latkes.  (If you know me, this makes perfect sense).  I think of Latkes as if a hash brown had a steamy relationship with a pancake (ie they fell in shallow fried love). 
 

I made these last night and served them with apple sauce and sour cream.  This is a really great recipe and I am really excited to share it with you.  It comes from the book 'Love and Knishes' by Sara Kasdan.  It was a gift from my recent visit to New York from my new favourite bookstore in the world, or Greenwich Village at least, Bonnie Slotnicks (163 W10th St NY, NY 10014)

I have a whole Bonnie Slotnicks blog I want to share, so I am just going to keep you salivating on that (cookbook aficionados you will love this place) while I get these Latkes out of the way.

Potato Latkes - (Pancakes)
Recipe from 'Love and Knishes' by Sara Kasdan

2 cups grated raw potatoes (measure after draining) ***
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1 rounded or heaping tablespoon flour or matzo meal (I used all purpose flour)
pinch baking powder (I was anal retentive and measured 1/4 tsp)
1 small onion grated - optional (I had a small french shallot in the fridge so I used that)

Combine all ingredients.  Mix well.  Drop pancake mixture by the tablespoonful onto a hot skillet generously greased with butter or shortening (I used olive oil). 

If you like thin, crispy pancakes, flatten with the back of a spoon.  Fry on both sides until brown.  Serve piping hot with sour cream, or with applesauce as an accompaniment to a pot roast.

*** When draining the potatoes, I grated them into a colander, set upon a bowl to catch the liquid.  I squeezed as much liquid out of the potato as I could, and reserved the liquid.  As I added the other ingredients to the potato, the starch in the potato water settled to the bottom of the bowl.  I poured off the reserved water and then added the starch to my potato mix.  I don't know why this is important but I read it somewhere or someone told me to do this  and it  has just stuck with me.

Happy Hanukkah!  (Don't worry Christmas, I'll get to you later!)

Until next time...

Kitty xx

1 comment:

  1. Sounds yummy! Really great to read your words again. From your kitchen to mine. :-)

    ReplyDelete