A little overdue...Latkes!

Now that you've passed Chanukah and the rest of the holiday season, you might be able to think about eating latkes again. Or, if you are like my regular reader Tim, you've been waiting for this write-up since 12/21 when it was mentioned it in the previous post. Here you go Tim!

This year I was swamped with homework and a busy schedule around the holidays. Usually I like to try out new latke recipes, but this year I was luck to find time to grate the potatoes. I picked up some sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, onions, scallions, and pulled out the mandolin. Grating potatoes is a labor of love and the results are always delicious. Don't forget to squeeze out the excess moisture before mixing! Thanks to a tip from my brother, I used just a little olive oil in the pan instead of a few inches of vegetable oil. The result was a crunchy and somewhat healthier latke.

An important note is that if you grate your white potatoes too early, they will turn gray and your latkes won't be very pretty. I don't know all the food science, but this can be slowed by grating your onions into the bowl first and then tossing the shredded potatoes with the onion juice.

We enjoyed these with the pot roast for dinner. As a special treat, we also had them for Chanukah breakfast with poached eggs on top. A 'kosher eggs benedict'! I haven't mastered a Hollandaise sauce yet (or even tried), but that would definitely finish this off nicely. Of course we had leftover cheddar scallion biscuits on the side too because you can never have too many carbs.

Happy latke eating! Perfect for Chanukah or anytime of the year! I'll do my best to write up my recipe - I did these from memory - so tweak as you see fit! The cooking instructions are the same for both

Potato Latkes

Traditional Latkes
1 russet potato, peeled
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 - 1/2 of a yellow onion
1 scallion, chopped into small pieces (add to taste)
1 tablespoon-ish flour
Salt and Pepper

Sweet Potato Latkes
1 sweet potato, peeled
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 scallion, chopped into small pieces (add to taste)
1 tablespoon-ish flour
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Salt and Pepper

Olive oil for frying

For each respective potato, follow these instructions
Using a mandolin or box grater, grate the potato into a large bowl
Using a colander, cheese cloth, or just your hands, squeeze out the excess moisture and return the potato to the bowl
Add the onion, and any seasonings and toss
Add a small amount of egg (about half the beaten egg) and about a tablespoon of flour, mix until the flour and egg are evenly distributed
If the mixture seems really wet, add a little more flour

Cooking for both
Place a wire baking rack over a baking sheet in your oven and heat to 200 degrees
Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat
When a small piece of shredded potato sizzles in the oil, its ready!
Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, add the latkes into the pan in batches
Cook for 2-3 minutes per side (until golden brown)
If they are browning too quickly, reduce the heat slightly
Place the cooked latkes in the heated oven while you finish frying all the latkes
Serve warm

For leftover latkes, let them cook completely
If you plan to eat them the next day, wrap them tightly in foil and refrigerate
If you plan to keep them longer than a day or two, place them on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer
When they are frozen, wrap them in plastic wrap and then foil (to prevent freezer burn)
Either way, reheat in a 350 degree oven before serving

Serve with chunky applesauce, sour cream, or horseradish!

Snow Outside, Hearty Pot Roast and Biscuits Inside

With temperatures in the twenties and the snow ready to fly, it was the perfect weekend for comfort food. I've been making a lot of brisket and short-ribs over the past year and wanted to try something different. I fought off a few crazy women at the grocery store and brought home a nice beef chuck boneless eye round. Out came the slow-cooker, the meat could roast while I got to work on some cheddar-scallion biscuits and latkes.

In the spirit of holiday creativity, I made up my own pot roast recipe. I checked an old Cooking Light slow-cooked pot roast recipe for cooking tips and then opened the fridge to pull out the ingredients. For the roasting liquid, I had a bottle of unused Castle Rock Pinot Noir (no red drinkers at my Thanksgiving feast). We had enough for dinner, and two lunches each (6-8 servings, depending on how hungry you are).

For the side dishes, I cooked up three options. First, cheddar-scallion biscuits. Second, traditional potato and onion latkes. Third, sweet potato and scallion latkes. All delicious, and all great with the pot roast! I'll write up the latkes tomorrow. For this post I'll focus on the pot roast and biscuits.

The biscuits were inspired by a post at Playing House but made following a recipe from TracyFood. The biscuits were unbelievable. Buttery, flaky, cheesy, scallion-y, mmm.... The only change I would make next time is to add a little less salt. For my biscuits I used a cheddar-jack cheese mix. Visit TracyFood for the full recipe! Now on the meat...

Snowy Weekend Pot Roast
1 3-ish lb. beef chuck boneless eye round, tied together
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
1 lb. parsnips, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 lb. carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
2-3 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup Pinot Noir (or other red wine)
1 cup reduced sodium beef broth
2 bay Turkish leafs
Kosher salt and pepper (I forgot to measure)
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1-1.5 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon sage

Set up your slow-cooker
Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a medium sauce pan (big enough to pour in your liquid and veggies)
Rub salt and pepper on all sides of the roast
Sear meat in pan, approximately 2 minutes per side
Remove meat from the pan and put into the slow cooker
Add a little more oil to the pan, and then add in onions
Cook for about 8 minutes, until they are just beginning to brown
Add in garlic and cook for 1 minute
Pour in wine and beef broth, scraping up any bits on the bottom of the pan
Stir in sage and thyme
Carefully pour the liquid over the roast in the slow cooker
Put the carrots, parsnips and potatoes around the meat
Put in the two bay leafs and sprinkle with a little more salt and pepper
Cover and cook on high for 2 hours
Reduce heat to low and cook for an additional 3-4 hours, until tender

The biscuits on the side were fabulous! I'll let you check out TracyFood for the recipe, but will share my mouth-watering photos below.

Happy Chanukah!

We celebrated Chanukah toward the end of the holiday this year, and even extended our celebration by an extra day. I didn't have time during the week to cook up any traditional holiday fare. With an impending snow storm this weekend there was plenty of time to cook up some Chanukah treats! I'll start with dessert and work backwards to dinner.

There are a few readers out there who are interested in reading about my experiment with making a modified Chanukah food. Instead of traditional fried sufganiyot (jelly donuts) - I found a recipe for sugar donut muffins that I turned into jelly donut muffins!

I used a basic buttermilk muffin recipe from my well-worn copy of Joy of Cooking along with some techniques from a recipe on Baking Bites . The idea to inject jelly in the center was all mine. One of my pet peeves is that all the commercial jelly donuts are filled with raspberry jelly, my second least favorite fruit (peaches are #1). I wanted these to be just the way I like them! To get strawberry preserves into the middle, I used a pastry decorating bag with a long narrow tube on the end.

Tomorrow at work is our holiday potluck happy hour, so I doubled the recipe to make enough to share. I averted a small disaster, after mixing all the ingredients in the first batch and pouring in to the muffin tin, I saw the sugar still sitting on the counter. Oops! So all the batter came out of the pan, the sugar was mixed in, and then the muffin tins were filled again. I made a mix of mini-muffins and regular muffins. A warning, these are buttery, sugary, delicious and not at all healthy. But if you figure they are a once or twice a year indulgence, who cares! Enjoy!

The sequence is: 1) Bake the muffins, 2) Coat in butter and sugar, 3) Fill with fruit preserves, 4) Try to refrain from eating them all yourself.

Jelly Donut Muffins
Adapted from Joy of Cooking's Basic Muffins Recipe
This will yield 12 regular muffins or 24 mini-muffins

Dry Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Wet Ingredients
2 large eggs
1 cup of low-fat buttermilk
2/3 cup sugar (don't forget!)
6 tablespoons warm, melted unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
Set up a wire cooling rack for the muffins when they are done
Grease either standard 12-muffin tin or 24-mini-muffin tin
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl, set aside
Whisk together the wet ingredients in a bowl
Add the wet ingredients into the large mixing bowl (dry ingredients) and mix until just moistened (be careful not to over mix - the batter won't be smooth)
Using a greased tablespoon, scoop the batter evenly into the greased muffin tin
Bake until a toothpick stuck in the center of the muffins comes out clean, about 12-15 minutes

For the sugar donut part:
1 stick of warm melted, unsalted butter in a shallow bowl
1/2 - 1 cup of sugar in a shallow bowl

When the donuts are done baking, remove from the muffin tins and set on the wire rack
Brush the top of the muffins with the melted butter
Roll the muffins in the sugar and then place on the cooling rack
Repeat until all the muffins are coated in sugar

For the Jelly Filling
1/2 - 1 cup of strawberry preserves

Fill the pastry bag with the strawberry preserves and push it down to the tube
Stick the tube in the top of the muffin and squeeze for about 2 seconds, pulling the tube out as you squeeze
Be careful not to overfill the muffins (they will break apart)

Enjoy warm or at room temperature. And be sure to have a large glass of milk to wash them down! This will be on my holiday recipe list every year now.