Helpful Holiday Hints

Some of the things I learned this year in preparation for Hanukkah, Christmas, and other stuff that went on this month.

1.  Do not drop this.

"Cupcake Gems" = edible pearls.

If you drop the Cupcake Gems, the lid will break and the gems will spill all over the place.  It will be like that scene in The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob when the bad guys are chasing the not-so-bad guy through the bubble gum factory.  You can see from this post-disaster photo that only about one inch worth of these edible pearls actually escaped the bottle, and yet I am still finding gems about the kitchen.  Why do we even have these in the house?

Also, The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob is one of the funniest movies of all time.  According to my parents and brothers and me.


2.  If you want to send a mixed holiday message to your neighbors, put a sparkly sign saying "Believe" in your yard and then plant your vicious yipping dog in front of it.

Neighbor's cheery "Believe" sign with
small but vicious dog.
What are we supposed to believe?

3.  If someone gives you a gift of a dead person's chanukiah (menorah for Hanukkah), just say thank you, use it and don't ask questions.

A gift from a relative, who thought it would be nice for us
to have the chanukiah that belonged to recently deceased
resident of her retirement community.  It's a fine chanukiah.
Made in Israel and everything.

4.  Make cookies.  This is therapeutic.

Nutmeg Cookie Logs. 
Just this month, I discovered that
there is one other person in the universe who
makes these cookies.

5. If you have to go out of state to a funeral, leave notes.  Admonish your (adult) children to eat the leftovers that you spent two hours cooking. 

I didn't think I needed to admonish the children to bring in the mail and the newspaper.  Apparently they are not adult enough (yet) to know that these are things that you do when you are tending to your homestead.

6.  Appreciate and care for your pets.

The kids may not have brought in the mail,
but they did feed the fish.

7.  If you hear sirens, don't assume the worst.  It might just be Santa making a friendly tour of your neighborhood.

That stuff about Santa driving a sleigh?  Total  myth.

8.  Go to the funeral if you can. 

West Palm Beach, Florida

You don't get to pick where the funeral is going to be, but see if you can find beauty and life in the midst of your grief.  Two years ago, the funeral I attended in mid-December was in Canada.  This time it was in Florida.  If the funeral takes you near the ocean, make time to go down to the beach.  Nature can provide some solace.

9.  Take spiritual and/or actual light with you when you travel. 

 It turns out it is okay to take Hanukkah candles in your carry-on luggage.  It might even be okay to take matches, but we didn't take any chances on that, and found matches when we were there.  It was the last night of Hanukkah while we were away.  I believe that the tradition of lighting the chanukiah was comforting to us and our relatives.

10.  Keep calm when talking to the mechanic.

I should have given them a time limit on finding
things wrong with the car.

When it's four days before Christmas, and the mechanic tells you that there are eight different things wrong with your minivan, and two of them are vital enough that they need to be fixed before your next long trip, and those two alone cost more than $1,000, and the eight fixes don't even address the thing where the sliding door opens randomly, and while you were hoping to keep driving the car longer, but it has 124,000 miles on it, remain calm.  Tell your husband that it's time for a smaller car.


Dear Reader, what are your helpful hints for this busy holiday season? 

Mrs. Latke Head

I did not grow up in Pittsburgh.  If I had, I would have knowledge of All Things Potato.  Pierogies, French fries on your salad, French fries in your sandwich – these are the main three food groups that Western Pennsylvania is famous for.  Get aht – yinz don’t wahnt fries on yinz’s steak salad?!

(For those like me, who are not from Western PA but have a bit of experience with Indian food: pierogies are essentially Polish samosas.  Potato filling wrapped in dough and then cooked.  I have to say, though, that I much prefer samosas to pierogies.)

Thus it was not until this year that I had knowledge of the product called frozen hash browns.  For a picnic this summer, my clever friend B_____, who did grow up in Pittsburgh, made a dish which my Younger Daughter called “Latke Salad” but which B_____ calls “Fried Potatoes.”  They are made using either dehydrated or frozen shredded potatoes, sautéed with diced onions, green peppers, and spices.  YD raved about Latke Salad.  I raved about the idea of shredded potatoes that did not contain scrapings of my knuckles.

Thanksgiving came. I cooked up a storm.  The next day I walked all over Pittsburgh’s Northside.  Then I was struck with Swollen Knee syndrome, remarkably on the same knee I injured during theHalloween Parades.   A variety of other things drained my energy.  And yet, Chanukah kept looking like it would arrive right on schedule, ten days after Thanksgiving.  Latke-making loomed.

 

Two-pan frying is necessary, if you want to finish cooking
the latkes before Purim.

I forced YD to help me at the grocery store.  She ran to get items while I limped around.  She did a fantastic job, until I came to “frozen hash browns” on the list.  I said, “Those are for making latkes.”  She balked.  “Those wouldn’t be real latkes!  You have to make latkes from potatoes!”  I said, “Okay,” and sent her back to get some real potatoes while I snuck over to the freezer section and found “Denny’s America's diner style hash brown shredded potatoes.”

My husband has been asking for someone to invent an Automatic Latke-Making Machine, but so far, there isn’t one.  When I shred the potatoes myself, latke-making is a long and messy process, at least two hours, including the time I spend removing gray shreds of potatoes from the kitchen walls.  With the frozen hash browns, it took about 45 minutes total.  Clean up was a breeze.  Woot! I even had the energy and enthusiasm to make Christmas cookies on the same day as I made latkes.   YD praised my latkes, and thanked me for using real potatoes.  I quickly disposed of the Denny’s bag and accepted her thanks.

My secret ingredient

Here on the blog I have made potato latkes six times.  The recipe using frozen hash browns follows (below), but if you are a purist and like to use “real potatoes” here is my recipe from past years.

If you are a Boy Scout at camp, here is a recipe for you.

Spin the dreidel. Sov, sov, sov.

Golden latkes, using no-longer-frozen potatoes

Potato Latkes using frozen shredded potatoes

YIELD 24 pancakes

Note:  This was just enough for the three of us, using the latkes as our main dish for dinner. If the Common Household Son will be at your table, double this recipe.

INGREDIENTS

one 26-ounce package frozen Denny’s hash brown shredded potatoes.

(or any brand, about 5-6 cups)

½ to 1 cup onion, finely chopped

1⁄4 cup fresh parsley, minced

2 tablespoons milk

3 eggs, beaten

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper (more or less to your taste)

vegetable oil (total of about 1 cup, or maybe less)

DIRECTIONS

Place hash browns in a strainer and rinse with cold water until thawed. Drain thoroughly; transfer to a large bowl.

Add onion, parsley, milk, eggs, flour, salt and pepper; mix well.

In a skillet over medium heat, heat 1/4 inches of oil. Drop batter by 1/4 cupfuls into hot oil. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels.

Optional: Serve with sour cream or applesauce.

Note: If using refrigerated hash browns, skip the first step.

Rush Construction Job

Today on the blog we examine this important question:  Is it possible to make a gingerbread menorah in less than three hours?

The answer is yes, with two conditions: the batter is already made, and you have had a vision, in the middle of the night, on how to construct it.

Here's how to do it, in twelve steps.  

Steps:

1.  Decide with Younger Daughter to make Gingerbread Tardis (following Smalltownme’s suggestion last year!).

2.  On Saturday, make gingerbread batter and put it in fridge overnight.

3.  On Sunday Younger Daughter abandons interest in making Gingerbread Tardis.  At the same time, realize that there is a “home-made menorah” contest at the synagogue’s Hanukkah party, coming up on Tuesday.

4.  In the wee hours of the morning on Monday, come up with an idea on an appropriate shape for your menorah, one that will relate to the Hanukkah story.  And that shape would be a hammer.

Hanukkah is a celebration of the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, after the Jewish guerilla army won the war against their oppressors.  One of the leaders of that guerilla army was Judah Maccabee (Maccabaeus) which means Joe the Hammer.

5.  On Tuesday, the day of the party, decide at 1 PM to see if you can do it.  Find a real hammer in the tool chest.  Trace and cut wax paper template.  Fire up the oven, roll the gingerbread dough, cut the pieces.

 

Some useful tools

Rolling and cutting

6.  Find an actual Hanukkah candle.  Make holes for candles in the dough.  Realize belatedly that matching up these holes once the dough is cooked is going to be nigh impossible.

 

Spacing the candle holes.
But this is pointless because the dough expands a bit while
baking so the holes will not be big enough for
regular Hanukkah candles.  Maybe for birthday candles...

7.  Put the gingerbread in the oven.  Go practice the Christmas cantata piano part while it is baking.  Make the house smell like burnt gingerbread by burning all the pieces of your gingerbread hammer menorah.  Remove from oven, sighing.

 

Burnt hammer head pieces.  If you make one piece shorter,
then you can make an actual claw on your hammer!

Burnt hammer handle pieces, with useless candle holes.

8.  While the gingerbread is cooling, mix up some “Royal Icing”.  It will likely refuse to form “stiff peaks” so keep adding more and more powdered sugar.  Eventually give up and hope it is not going to be impossibly drippy.  Decide that no, you will NOT be embarrassed to take this gingerbread menorah to the Hanukkah party.

 

Gloppy, sticky Royal Icing.  Do not let little kids near
this stuff if Aunt Gertrude is coming over any time soon -
it will make your entire house sticky.

9.  Frost the first layer of your gingerbread, then stack on the next layer.  Poke a toothpick in each candle-hole to clear out the icing.  Realize that this method is fruitless, and you will never get actual candles in there.  Cover the rest of the Royal Icing to keep it moist.  Leave the sides unfrosted while you look for decorations.

 

Partially frosted hammer menorah.
Note that I made an extra hammer-head piece, which was a
good thing, because one of them broke.

Okay, this thing is not a toothpick.  It's some kind of weird
tool I found in the back of the kitchen drawer.
An escargot extractor, maybe?  But why would I have that when
I never make escargot?

10.  Scrounge around for decorations.  Finding none, go to grocery store.  Buy Hanukkah gelt (chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil).  In candy aisle, find blue Sour Punch Bites, which probably taste disgusting, but could be used as candy candles, which is a fun thing to say.  Feel up the bag to determine if the candies really are shaped like candles.  Buy Lifesaver Gummies in the hopes that the candy candles will fit inside them.  Buy sno-caps chocolate nonpareils just because.

 

More tools

11.  Go home.  You still have an hour.  Using pizza cutter, slice chocolate coins in half.  Realize that this was a mistake, since the foil immediately falls off the chocolate.  Glue the foil back on with Royal Icing. 

12.  Cover your entire hammer shape with gobs of icing.   Sprinkle with blue sugar that you found in the back of the closet, and stick the candy on in a festive pattern.  Find out that the Sour Punch Bites do NOT fit inside the Lifesaver Gummies.  Who knew? Jam a toothpick into each candle hole.  Stick a Sour Punch bite on each toothpick.  Find that a little bit of toothpick is sticking up.  This is a Hanukkah miracle!  Cut little bits of orange and red lifesavers and stick the pieces onto the toothpick ends.  These are the candle flames.

Voila!  The Miraculous Gingerbread Menorah of Judah Maccabee.

Sorry there are no intermediate photos, especially of the
 Hanukkah miracle when the toothpick ends were sticking
out.  I was in a rush.

Aerial view.

Here are a few of the other entries in the menorah contest.  I thought these were much cooler than mine.  The tube-shaped tissue paper ones have a little electric tea light inside each one!  And who would ever have thought to make a menorah out of Knex?  One person made their entire menorah out of lifesaver candies, with lollipops as candles!  And the melted crayon one is so beautiful and artistic, and has real candles which match the crayon colors.  There were more, but I didn’t get photos of them all.

 

Tissue paper menorah!

Crayon art menorah!
That menorah on the left is not "home made" and was
on the wrong table.

Knex menorah!

Lifesaver menorah!

Happy Hanukkah!  Now back to practicing the piano part for the Christmas cantata.