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Tag Archives: latkes

Quick and Easy Sweet-Tart Apple Sauce (Why Buy?)

We made latkes for Christmas Eve. I know, these grated potato fritters are more connected with Judaism and Hannukah than Christianity, but they made perfect sense with our global tapas menu, plus my son is a very Old Testament kind of kid who is adamant that we need to have a menorah next year and who bought himself dreidels with his leftover money from the school holiday shopping fair.

We used Roma for sweet, Granny Smith for tart, and Honeycrisp because they are delicious.

Welcome to New York, where as the comedian Jackie Mason used to say, everyone is at least half-Jewish.

Anyhoo, we are still working out our latke recipe, but in the meantime, they tasted very nice with the traditional accompaniments of sour cream and this apple sauce. Apple sauce is very easy to make and allows you to choose how sweet or tart and how sooth or chunky you want it. We have a fun apple peeler and corer, so the little guy can get involved too!

This corer makes life easier and more fun!

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Tags: apple sauce, cooking, easy holiday sides, food, fruit ideas, latkes, recipes

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Categories Food, Recipes, sauce, Vegan, Vegetarian

Zucchini Fritters, with Manchego, Rosemary, and Thyme

1 Oct

What am I gonna do with this!?! Basta, ya! As enormous bats of zucchini continue to be a big part of our C.S.A. pick-up this summer-into-fall, we start to get desperate for different ways to prepare them. I generally grate them into salads (I dislike raw zucchini, but grated into a salad makes it much more texturally appealing for me!), my dad grills them with just a bit of oil, or we roast them.

Grated zucchini

As much as I adore absolute simplicity in food — from both a preparation and a consumption standpoint — enough is enough. One does need to mix it up a bit, and try new techniques, too. So it was time to be inspired by a recipe for zucchini fritters I saw recently at Emmy Cooks, and another one for zucchini latkes at Deborah Rivera Pittorino’s chef’s blog, Seasoned Fork (full disclosure – you will find book reviews I have written there; The Big Oyster is my favorite). Both recipes seemed simple enough, a lovely change for us over here, and as they are pan-fried, I thought I was in with a chance at getting Leandro to try veggies this way. Continue reading →

Tags: cooking, courgettes, easy recipes, food, latkes, savory pancakes, summer squash, vegetarian, what to do with zucchini, zucchini fritters

Comments 25 Comments
Categories CSA, farming, Food, gardening, lunch, Picnic, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetarian

¡Comida Hispana! Recipes to unleash your inner Latino

Mango Mojitos With Ancho Chili Salt

It was another summer Friday in the neighborhood and that called for another festive cocktail. Riding high on the success of last session’s passionfruit mojitos, I decided to make mango mojitos. The drink itself followed much the same construction, but the mango was decidedly sweeter than the passionfruit, so I decided that it needed a […]
Passionfruit Mojitos by the Pitcher or Glass

Summer evenings in the neighborhood can be wonderful. Occasionally on a Friday some of us neighbors bring out folding chairs and sit together in one front yard for a bit of happy hour while the kids go mental on someone else’s lawn. It’s pretty much BYO, but we do mix up a pitcher of experimental […]
KID IN THE KITCHEN: Tembleque (Tropical Coconut Pudding)

We spent the better part of last summer in Puerto Rico, and among the tasty things that my little guy fell in love with was tembleque, a jiggly (temblar means to tremble) dessert that falls somewhere between pudding and flan. I promised him we’d make it back in New York, and this weekend, for a […]
Sangría Tropical (and rainforest paradise pictures)

When the heat gets tropical, so should the drinks. On a recent trip to the mountains of Puerto Rico, I was inspired by a wonderfully cooling and exotic sangría I had up around and about El Yumque (Caribbean National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. Forest Service system) at Noelia’s, recommended to us […]
Salmorejo de jueyes (Land Crab Stew)

There are a number of land crab species skittering about Caribbean coastlines. Some are edible and the one we eat most here in Puerto Rico (although I am told they mostly are imported from Venezuela these days) is Cardisoma guanhumi which we call juey and — if you are English-speaking — you might call the […]