Potato Latkes for Hanukkah

Been a while since I have put anything up, but tonight that all changes. It is the first night of Hanukkah and tonight I made my "World Famous in my House" latkes! These were made the old fashioned way, with love and a knuckle busting grater. Sure, I could have taken the easy way out with the food processor. Going old school just seemed a little more satisfying when it came to the finished product.

The process of making latkes starts with peeling tons of potatoes. Sure, you can do this with a peeler. However, this method can take forever and can be frustrating if your peeler is dull or old. If you are skilled with a knife, you can peel potatoes lightning fast and this was the route I went. Put your potatoes in ice cold water after they are peeled. This will help prevent them from turning brown after you peel them and especially after you grate them.

The recipe for latkes is pretty simple. Bag of potatoes, 1 onion, 1 egg, a couple tablespoons of flour, kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste. You can substitute flour for baking powder or even potato starch, which I will get to in a bit.

Step 1: Grate your onion. Doing this first will further help prevent from your potatoes turning brown right away.

Step 2: Grate your potatoes. As you grate them into the bowl be sure to toss it with your onions. You will want to use both sides of the grater, one to get some thicker pieces of potato and the other to get more of a fine grate. I will usually use about 2/3rds of the potatoes on the larger side and the remaining third on the finer grate. Once you are done grating you will then take your potatoes & onions and place them in a cheese cloth, which is placed in a strainer. You want to get out as much water as possible. While your mixture is draining you can then start to heat up your oil in your pans. You want just enough oil that will cover your latkes, but not so much that they are submerged.

Step 3: Take your mixture from the cheese cloth, squeeze out one more time to make sure it is as dry as possible. Hot oil and water don't mix, so you want to be sure all the water is out at this stage. You will then add in your egg, flour, salt and pepper. Mix well by hand so everything is coated. Here is where you can substitute the flour for potato starch. When your mixture was draining into the bowl through the cheese cloth, water wasn't the only thing coming out. When you pour the water out of the bowl you will have a thick substance on the bottom. That is potato starch. You can flake it off with a fork and combine that back into your mixture. I did not do that for this batch, but I have done so in the past.

Step 4: Take a mixing spoon, scoop up some of your mixture, press it into the spoon, and then place it into the oil by turning your spoon over in the pan. Then press down on the latke. Once the latke becomes golden brown, on the bottom and edges, you will flip them and wait for the same process to finish on that side. Once this is complete you will remove from the pan and set on paper towel to dry.

Step 5: Now it is time to plate & eat. Garnish with some freshly cut scallions and serve with sour cream & applesauce. Personally I enjoy eating them with both side items, but it is all a personal preference thing. Some like just applesauce. Some just like sour cream. Some like them simply naked. Either way, there is no wrong way to enjoy a latke and these were very much enjoyed by us tonight!

For dessert we went with the traditional Hanukkah dessert of jelly doughnuts. You can further read about the meaning of this here: http://jhom.com/hebrew/educating.htm

Memorial Day Cookout - Meats on Sticks

Memorial Day is a time to pay honor to those that have served before us and for those that currently do everything that they can to protect and serve our great country. However, the holiday does mean one more thing and this is cookouts. It is the "official" start to the summer cookout season. All across the country grills were fired up and meats were smoked or grilled to perfection. My house was no different on this Memorial Day.

This year I decided to go the meats on sticks route and went with beef and chicken kabobs. A good kabob is a thing of beauty and will leave you plenty satisfied. Some like to put their meat and veggies on the same skewers, but I choose to have the meat on their own and the vegetables on another. Only reason for this is because of the cooking times. Everything was marinated in the same Gourmet Warehouse of Hilton Head's Low Country Marinade. This stuff goes great with anything and played perfect with this selection of meats and vegetables.

As for the rest of the meal, I decided to make a pasta salad and then bought some potato salad from Publix. Just wasn't in the mood to make the potato salad this morning and the red skin homestyle one at Publix is pretty darn good. The pasta salad was just pasta, peas, onions, garlic, cherry tomatoes, feta, and Newman's Own Light Lime Dressing. Just a little of this goes a long way and this salad was perfectly dressed. A few hours chilling in the fridge gave the pasta salad time to get to the right serving temp and for the flavors in the dressing to work their way into every bite of the salad.

Nothing tops off a cookout quite like fresh ice cold watermelon, and this cookout was no different. Seedless might be on the label, but I don't think I have ever run across a watermelon that was 100% seedless. This was pretty close, but still no cigar.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Cruise Food Aboard The Disney Dream

This will probably be the longest post in the history of IJAT, but I decided it was best to do this in one massive post rather than a few daily posts.

Below is a collection of what I ate during our cruise May 8th-12th aboard the new Disney Dream. The first few pictures were the first meal we had aboard the ship at Flo's V-8 Cafe, which was located poolside. There you could get everything from pizza, burgers, fries and chicken fingers to sandwiches, wraps, salads, and fruit.

Our first dinner was located inside Animators Palate. This was a very cool dining room where the walls came to life with Crush, Nemo, Dori and the rest of the cast from Finding Nemo. This is pretty much a Pixar room and my son loved every second we were in there. During dinner Crush made his way, window to window, around the room and interacted with each table. He would pick someone out at a table and have a full conversation with them. The dinner itself was pretty good as I had the veal trio.

The next group show breakfast as we pulled into Nassau. Amazing view of the ocean and sunrise to have during breakfast.

Some other highlights through the rest of the pics:

The BBQ buffet at Castaway Cay for lunch was outstanding. Ribs, Mahi, Chicken...pretty much everything you could want was there.

The Watermelon & Honeydew cold soup was amazing! I had this after eating the spicy Conch Chowder. It was a very nice palate cleanser and was quite refreshing.

The desserts were pretty meh, except for the last ones. The Creme Brulee was one of the best I have ever had and the Grand Marnier Souffle was beyond anything I expected it to be.

During that same meal I had an amazing Rack of Lamb and a cold duck appetizer. The French Onion Soup though was not good at all. Hard to call it soup since all the liquid was pretty much soaked up into the bread. It was more like French Onion Bites, but far from the real French Onion Bites at The Stanton Social in NYC. One of these days I will try those for myself.

Enjoy the pics. I know it is a lot to go through, but it was a lot to eat as well.