Hanukah with a candle, #latkes, & #mandelbrot

HALLIE EPHRON: This year Christmas and Hanukah collide, date-wise. Tonight we'll be lighting the first candle on the menorah and singing the first-night blessing. Here's our granddaughter with her first Hanukah candle two years ago. This year will be her third and her little brother's first. 

Every year our special meal includes potato pancakes (aka latkes), brisket, and for dessert twice-baked cookies, like biscotti made with oil instead of butter and loaded with nuts, chocolate chips, and maraschino cherries.

Here are my recipes.

The simplest ever potato pancakes (These are what I grew up with, nope, no onions)

Serves 4

2 large unpeeled potatoes (all-purpose russet or Yukon gold work best)

1 egg

Flour

Cooking oil (vegetable or peanut oil; not olive oil)
Sour cream or apple sauce

Caution – once you start preparing, don’t stop until all the potatoes are cooked – grated potatoes left to stand will turn dark and yucky looking.

1. Grate 2 large potatoes (you can use a food processor but the results will be a bit crisper if you use a hand grater).

2. Dump the grated potatoes into a clean cloth dish towel. Over the sink, wring out as much liquid as you can from the potatoes.

3. Put the wrung-out potatoes into a mixing bowl and add the egg and a scant handful of flour.

4. Mix.

5. Heat oil in a frying pan until a bit of potato sizzles when it hits the oil.

6. Ladel in tablespoons of potatoes into the hot oil. Don't crowd them. Flatten and cook until brown and crisp on one side, then turn and cook until brown and crisp on the other.

7. Drain cooked potato pancakes on paper towel, put on a wire rack in a cookie sheet, and keep in a warm oven.

8. Cook batches until all are cooked.

9. Serve with salt and your choice of apple sauce or sour cream.

Mandelbrot

2 eggs

3/4 c sugar

1 heaping T marmalade

1 c vegetable oil

3 1/2 c flour

3 oz chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 c raisins

1 c nuts (we use walnuts but "mandel" means almond)

1 small bottle of maraschino cherries, drained

Cinnamon-sugar

Cookie sheet

Preheat oven to 350 

Grease a cookie sheet (or two)

1. Beat the eggs

2. Add oil, sugar, jam, vanilla and mix together

3. Add raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, cherries and mix together

4. Add the soda and baking powder to the flour

5. Gradually mix the other already mixed (steps 1-3) ingredients into the flour

6. Shape the dough into three 3-4" wide logs on a greased cookie sheet

7 Bake at 350 for 25 minutes 

8. Cool and cut diagonally with a sharp knife. 

9. Put each piece, cut side up, sprinkle it with cinnamon-sugar, and bake for another 10 minutes

Cool. Save in a covered container.

These are wonderful briefly warmed in the oven, cinnamon side up, just before serving. 

My husband's father would have eaten them with a glass of hot tea with a heaping spoonful of marmalade stirred in.

Holiday spirit and sugar cookies

LUCY BURDETTE: We have so much going on in our house this year, it's hard to make room for Christmas preparations. I was even considering skipping the cookie baking. But what kind of crazy priority would that be? So I'm diving into the butter and sugar this weekend. Here's what I'll be making:

Christmas Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar, beat in egg and vanilla. combine flour and salt separately, then mix in with the butter/sugar mixture. chill the dough 3 hours. preheat oven to 350. roll out dough to 1/8 inch thick on lightly floured surface. dip cookie cutters into flour before each use. bake on ungreased cookie sheets about 10 min or until lightly browned.

They are good this way, but even better with creamy vanilla frosting:). beat 3 cups powdered sugar with 1/3 cup softened butter. stir in 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and about 2 tablespoons milk. color and ice as desired.

I've made these for a Hanukkah party too--cut them out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter and frosted with blue icing:). If you'd rather try a true Hanukah recipe, here's a link to Hallie's neighbor's Mandel bread. These are delicious!

How's your holiday spirit this year?

Hanukah Cookies, from Our House to Yours

HALLIE EPHRON: Our New England neighborhood takes its holidays seriously, particularly Christmas. Across the street, Jean dresses up the goose on her front steps like Mrs. Claus. Trees and candlelights go up in windows. Traffic becomes a nightmare. And every year it seems like more and more houses light up.

We're the anomaly. Here's a picture of our house, a dark blot between our Christmassy neighbors. This is what a Jewish family house with Irish and Italian neighbors looks like in December.

This year Hanukah falls smack on top of Christmas. We don't make a big deal out of the holiday but we do have our traditions. We eat lots and lots of potato latkes. With sour cream. Whole fat sour cream. Lots of whole fat sour cream. And salt.

Another treat is Mandelbrot. That's twice-baked Hanukah cookies, like biscotti only Jewish and made with oil instead of butter.

"Mandel" means almonds, "brot" means bread. It's probably traditional to use almonds in the cookies but I use chopped walnuts or pecans. My recipe also calls for maraschino cherries. Go ahead, admit it: you love them, too. And you officially have my permission to eat lots of them.

Thanks to Bertha Mandel, my one-time neighbor, for this lovely recipe which is so easy to make and so delicious.

BERTHA MANDEL'S MANDELBROT

2 eggs
3/4 c sugar
1 heaping T marmalade
1 c oil
3 1/2 c flour
3 oz chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 c raisins
1 c nuts (toasted skinned almonds or chopped pecans or walnuts)
1 small bottle of drained maraschino cherries (confession: I use a big bottle)
Cinnamon-sugar
Greased cookie sheet

Preheat oven to 350
Grease a cookie sheet (or two)

1. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs
2. Add oil, sugar, marmalade, vanilla and mix together
3. Add raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, cherries and mix together
4. In a big bowl, dump the soda and baking powder and flour and whisk it together
5. Gradually mix the other already mixed (steps 1-3) ingredients into the flour
6. Shape the dough into two or three mounded rows on a greased cookie sheet
7 Bake at 350 for 25 minutes
8. Cool and cut diagonally with a sharp knife.
9. Put each piece on a cut side and sprinkle it with cinnamon-sugar
10. Bake for another 10 minutes

Cool. Save in a covered container.
When you're ready to serve them, these are wonderful briefly warmed in the oven, cinnamon-sugar side up.