Playing Ketchup Part 1

(Post title in honor of my roommate Allison, who will put ketchup on anything and everything.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR, BLOGGIES!!!  I have a good feeling about 2010.  I have yet to come up with resolutions, but I'm pretty sure I need to establish at least a few.  I think I'm on the verge of a major life change or two, and I could use some sort of blueprint to work with, aka new year's resolutions.  Will post them when I come up with them.

As you may have guessed, I am back from the family cruise vacation, and while I have lots of stuff to share from the trip, I also seem to still have leftovers from December.  Since I have been very diligent about photographing but much less diligent about blogging, I have found myself with a backlog of photos that I want to post.  So I'm going to go back in time with a few food highlights from the past few weeks.  I've been mostly working from home and/or not working at all (yay bench time!), so I've had time to get back in the kitchen, and I totally overlooked the holiday season.  How grinchy of me!  Once I catch up from 2009, I will start fresh with a cruise post and then try to keep up with myself. As a matter of fact, Freya's Official Resolution #1: Blog at least 2-3 times a week, depending on availability of material.  I want to say I will blog every day (that's the real goal), but I'll stick with a more attainable goal for now and reassess later.  Midyear Resolutions?

And so, I give you: LIGHTNING ROUND 1: The Holidays!

Latkes!  My friends and I had our 2nd Annual Chanukah Latke Party a few weeks ago, and it was a huge success.  We learned from our mistakes, so this year included less latke (read: less deep-fried food), more veggies, a Secret Santa, and... a snowstorm!  I guess we didn't plan that last part, but it was a nice touch.  Thanks, mother nature.

I kind of invented my own latke, inspired by a whole slew of recipes that I read for research.  I used 1 large Yukon Gold potato, 1 carrot, 1 parsnip, and 1 baby zucchini + 1 normal zucchini.  I ended up adding 3 eggs in the end and probably about 1/4 cup matzo meal, if not more.  Breadcrumbs or flour work too, but matzo meal felt more traditional to me.

It's a pretty simple process: grate, mix, fry your little heart out, blot blot blot.  Yumzo.  And I didn't even lose any knuckles this year on the grater.

Tada!  All fried up and gorrrrgeous if I do say so myself.  You need to make the oil super hot and be generous with it.  I only eat latkes (or whatever potato pancake variety this may be) once or twice a year, so what the heck.  Live a little.  And use Canola oil.  :)

I thought they were delicious if I do say so myself.  Parsnip was a lovely addition.  My other contribution to the party was homemade applesauce, which is absurdly easy but a billion times more satisfying than the jar stuff.  All you do is peel, core, slice (I like to slice each apple in eighths and then cut each slice in half crosswise), cinnamon and sugar up those puppies, and nuke, mash, nuke, mash.

I use a lot of cinnamon because I love the stuff (1 tsp?) and probably about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for this batch of 4 apples.  Depends on how sweet your apples are to begin with.  We devoured this.  Buying more apples and getting back at it tomorrow.  I love eating this stuff warm as a snack.  I'm thinking granola would taste good on top.  Will report back on that one.

My friends are wonderful chefs too, so when we get together we eat cook a lot.  Ariel made zucchini latkes, and Amanda made traditional ones (potato).

 

Shield your eyes from the grease, por favor.

Katie made a sweet potato and apple bake from my previously mentioned bible, Nava Atlas's The Vegetarian Family Cookbook -- I can post the recipe if requested.  And then we (and by we I think I mean Alex, Katie, and I) shared this ginormous bowl of roasted brussels sprouts a la Rachel.

And then there was obviously vino.  I drank white for a change because I brought over one of my wine of the month wines!  It was a Sicilian Fiano, a new white wine varietal for me, and I really liked it.  A lot of complexity in flavor for a white, and still able to stand on its own without food.  A winner!  It won a lot of affordability and value awards.

My poorly lit plate, clockwise from bottom left: brussels sprouts, apple/sweet potato, perfect baked chicken, apple sauce, one of each latke plus a little sour cream (ok, and one more of my own ;)), and grilled onions!

Allison broke out her apron and prepared this AMAZING cake from Cooking Light.  Allison, can you give me the recipe?  PLEASE?  It was apple-y and cinnamon-y and sooo moist.  I insisted that she take home all the leftovers to her apt (aka my apt).  It was delicious the next day.  And the day after.  She also claims it's 120 calories per slice?!

After the food comas set in, we lit the candles...

... then did our first annual $10 maximum Secret Santa gift exchange!  Amanda showed off her new Snuggie.  Look how she can hold a glass AND stay warm at the same time!

And I showed off the seal Amanda gave me!!! 

We now may or may not have a collection of wind-up toys in front lined up in front of our TV. They may or may not be named Seymour, Tupac, and Xavier.

After all was said and done, we looked out the window and noticed that it was kind of, well, blizzardy.  We postponed the journey back uptown from Rachel and Ariel's place by watching Sex and the City, but eventually it was time to go.  Katie, Joanna, and I ventured to the bus stop...

...then to the subway...

"EEEEKKKK A SUBWAY RAT!"

"We're distressed and cold!"

...and then finally a snowy walk home from the subway station.

Mmmm, New York in the winter time.  Beautiful.