Latkes in July

So I am not the most observant Jew, having gone to Shabbat a handful of times this past year and mostly for the free meals. But even I know that latkes are eaten for Hanukah, a holiday whose whole ideal is things covered in oil. But, as family tradition goes we’ve always been able to pick whatever we want for our birthday dinner and my younger brother always picked latkes for his July birthday. So it isn’t so strange to me to be cooking them on the hottest day Seattle may have ever had.


Having already had to cancel two cooking with friends dates, I was determined to make the third and prove that I could feed myself and others locally. Potatoes are local, onions are local, eggs and flour are local, and thank God oil is my exemption. My friend Brenna and I try to cook once a week to improve ourselves, and it was also Lindsey’s first time eating latkes.

Adapted from my Mother’s distracted advice
Latkes

5 larger potatoes (local)
1 onion (local)
3 eggs (local)
½ cup flour (local)
2 ½ inches zucchini (local)
Oil

Brenna grew up grating everything by hand, but if you have a food processor I’d highly recommend busting it out. Essentially you want to grate the potatoes, onions, and zucchini and put them in a large bowl. Beat the eggs separately before adding them in, and then also in the flour. Mix it all together, pour a significant amount of oil into a skillet and turn it on medium high. When its hot enough that you can drop in a potato scrap and it will sizzle, than you scoop thin patties (think medium pancake size) into the oil until they’re browned on one side. Flip, and cook through, stacking on a pan lined with paper towels. Place paper towels between layers of stacking your latkes, this makes quite a lot. We ate maybe 1/6 the batter between the three of us, and divided up the rest to take home.

All in all, you couldn’t really taste the zucchini (for those non-Jews of you, not a traditional component of this potato pancake), but it made me feel healthier. Sour cream and applesauce is the traditional (and very tasty) condiments, but I abstained from both for the eat local challenge. Which made me sad.

I miss butter

Those blueberry muffins I made yesterday that I was kind of meh about? So damn good on day 2. Maybe the flavors just needed time to meet each other, but the two I had with breakfast next to my peach and blueberries were excellent, and filling enough to sustain me on my 18 mile bike ride I took this morning.

By the end of last night I was in desperation for the rest of the week. I had tried to make pasta, but something went wrong and my dough was just not going to make pasta. Frustrated I threw it into the oven and made plain scrambled eggs instead. The ‘bread’ obviously didn’t turn out that well, for to dense and hard to really eat as bread. So this afternoon I cut it into chunks and roasted it alongside some awesome varieties of potatoes and a clove of garlic. The ‘bread’ (nothing like what I made a couple of days ago that was splendid) was still pretty bad but at this point I’m much more wary about just throwing away food.

One of the fun benefits of the Eat Local Challenge is that I get to try a lot more different varieties of produce then is normally sold. These potatoes were just dug up the morning before I bought them, and the men assured me that there would be more variety of them next week.

Adapted from my Father’s advice
Roasted potatoes

5 potatoes (local)
Olive oil
Salt
1 clove garlic

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Rub potatoes with olive oil and salt, then put in oven for about an hour along with unpeeled garlic clove. Poke potatoes with fork to make sure they are tender, then take out and eat.

Obviously you can adapt this however you want, I put in a clove of garlic to use to flavor them since I’m not eating butter right now.

I miss butter. A lot. When I made brinner tonight (breakfast for dinner), I looked at these gorgeous pancakes and you know what I wanted? Butter, and syrup. I’m starting to feel like I’m on a diet which is not what I wanted.

But these pancakes? Still good stuff, made me wish I bought the bomb looking sausage at the farmer’s market, maybe next trip. I added in blueberries because that’s what I’ve been eating nonstop, but these would be excellent with chocolate chips as well. These pancakes were so thick that it was hard to cook, so maybe lessening the baking powder. Of course, this flour is a whole different beast to work with.

Adapted from allrecipes.com
Blueberry pancakes
Serves four

2 cups whole grain flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 ½ cups milk
2 tablespoons warm water
Blueberries (optional)

Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, except the water. Then stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Add water as needed to thin out batter.
Heat up skillet, grease with olive oil. Put batter down with a three inch or so diameter. Place blueberries on top of pancake, then flip and cook. And eat.