Time for turkey, butternut squash, cranberries and apple crumble. I’ve never aimed to be a food blogger, but my sweet potato latkes (potato pancakes) turned out well, so I’ll share the recipe. (See below)
Thanksgiving is the one holiday most Americans share and enjoy. For some people it’s about food, family & friends — and for others it’s about food, family, friends & football. Thanksgiving is also about the gigantic balloons of the Macy’s Parade and the sudden appearance of pumpkin flavored coffee, plus terrible and terribly sappy — and somehow appealing — holiday movie marathons on TV.
The period of time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve is a great time of the year in New York. There’s an excitement in the air and tourists crowd into Rockefeller Center to see the famous tree, line up to see the displays in store windows, and troop through Times Square gawking at the billboards and posing for photos with “The Naked Cowboy.” I try not to get annoyed when I’m trying to get from one place to the next, but no one seems to remember that they call them side-WALKS and not side-stand and talks.
Enough complaining. It’s time to cook, eat, drink, celebrate & have a MONSTER holiday season.
Sweet Potato Latkes
2 cups of grated sweet potatoes (large gage side on an old-style box grater)
½ cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 dash of freshly ground pepper
1 large egg
Toss grated potatoes & onions in large bowl to distribute onions throughout; add flour to absorb some of the moisture; lightly beat egg, season it with salt & pepper, then add to mixture.
Be careful to squeeze moisture out (pressing with spoon) before placing large spoonfuls into hot pan with lots of good oil; flatten with spatula, fry until crisp on both sides & serve hot with apple sauce or plain. I like caviar & sour cream on white potato latkes — would be good on these too!
I love potato pancakes. Sometimes I play around and make them with left over mashed potatoes too. Quite a few ways to play with em.
The caviar would be an interesting toping. Haven’t done that yet. But then it’s been a while since I have had Xavier too.
The Russian side of my family was into sour cream and caviar on potato latkes. The other side, was into apple sauce. Both work. The convergence of Thanksgiving and Chanukah inspired my sweet potato variation.
The holiday season seems to bring out the MONSTER in many people — the shopping monster, the food monster, the ghost of Christmas past monster and, in some ways the worst of all, the domestic diva/Martha Stewart Monster. That’s the one that inspired me to make a gingerbread house one year — I wound up doing a replica of Stonehenge in the Snow (powdered sugar) and it was behind the monstrous mania that overwhelmed me in my mother’s kitchen when I was trying to fry the latkes with an improvised spatula and in a less than perfect pan. Ugh! I shooed everyone away from me with monstrous “get out of the kitchen until I’m done frying.”
Happy Holidays! May we maintain our humanity amidst the glittering lights, piles of wrapping paper, crowds of shoppers and extra helpings.
Yum! Saved the recipe to file and will give it a try very soon. You can post recipes any time you like. 🙂
LOL… kind of hard to link recipes to monsters — unless I’m talking about the Cookie Monster.