Hanukkah fun
Last night was both the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, so I decided I wanted to have a Hanukkah latke party. So we did, although Morgan, my dad and I were the only actual Jewish people there.
I made chicken soup, matzo balls, and latkes because I was going for as Jewish as I could get without having to make a brisket.
The soup came out fantastically well, even for me. I made it slightly differently this time than I have in the past and it came out incredible. I forgot to put the dill in at first and when Morgan and I tasted it at the hour mark we were both like "Wait...something's missing" and then I remembered and added the dill and it was much better. I'm not a big fan of onions--I like the flavor, it's a texture thing--so I haven't put them in my soup before, but I threw in an onion yesterday and I think it made a really big difference. Will do again.
I don't have a soup recipe exactly but how I make it is as follows:
1. Pat dry chicken and put in big stockpot
2. Add vegetables; I usually add about two to three whole carrots and two ribs of celery, plus now one onion. You won't eat the vegetables with the soup so I generally just cut them into large chunks.
3. Add salt, peppercorns (I use whole peppercorns instead of ground pepper. Use more of each than you think you'll need.)
4. Fill pot with cold water and set on stove to boil.
5. When water boils, skim off the foam that collects on top.
6. After skimming off foam, add dill (if you add it before you end up skimming off the dill along with the foam), add more salt, set pot on simmer slightly covered.
7. Leave for however long you want. I usually let it simmer for a couple hours; more than 2 isn't necessary IMO.
8. Check soup at 1 hour mark and taste-test; add more salt if necessary.
9. Final taste test; add more whatever, maybe simmer a little longer, then you're done.
10. Take solids out of chicken stock and let them cool; vegetables can get thrown out, but I usually shred the chicken and add most of it back to the soup. This method makes a super tasty poached chicken.
I have found the best way to get layered flavor in my soup is to add salt at a few points while cooking, so I salt the water before I boil it, then I salt again, then I salt at the hour mark and yesterday I added a touch more at the end. You will need more salt than you think you do. I love salt, but I don't over-salt my cooking because not everyone loves it like me. Which is why I always have extra taste-testers because I can't always tell when I have used enough salt. But Morgan, my dad and I all agreed I'd hit it out of the park with this one.
My matzo ball recipe is literally the one on the Manischevitz can of matzo meal, except instead of broth/water I use seltzer or club soda. Makes them fluffy. They didn't come out quite as fluffy as I wanted last night but everyone else loved them so whatev. And I made just enough, we had three leftover.
For the latkes I did what I usually do when I need recipes and turned to the NYT cooking site (which is actually a really awesome resource). Melissa Clark, one of their food writers, had published a "Classic potato latke" recipe and since I trust Melissa implicitly on recipes I opted to go with it. But all latkes are basically the same: About two parts potato to one part onion, two eggs for about every pound of potatoes, half a cup of flour or matzo meal for every lb of potatoes, some salt, and the recipe I used yesterday had me add baking powder but I'm not sure why.
Grate the potatoes and onion coarsely (oh my God I could not have done this without my food processor and its grating disc. That was fantastic), wring out all the water, mix in the other ingredients, fry until golden brown on both sides--it took about 5-6 min per side last night but I was making thicker latkes than I think maybe I should have. But everyone loved them, including me. I made a test latke to see how I liked it and my first reaction upon taking a bite (other than "holy shit, hot") was "Now that is what a latke should taste like".
I meant to double the recipe but I accidentally tripled it, so we had a ton of latke mix. I did make about 2/3 of it and I could have made more last night to finish it but no one was actually hungry and I was tired of cooking, so I opted to stop. (People said they would have eaten more had I made them but no one was hungry for more so I said I was done).
Today our kitchen is a disaster because we left the cleanup for today, but my dad's coming over in about 3 hours to help with it because I told him and Morgan that I'd done almost all the cooking, they could do the cleanup. Then the three of us are actually going to see Rogue One.
(almost all the cooking means I did everything except peel and chop potatoes, and Dad finished grating them for me so I could make matzo balls).
I meant to make the soup Friday, so I could skim off the fat on Saturday and use the schmaltz to fry the latkes, but it ended up not happening.
But overall, I give myself an A on the food because no one had complaints and I got a bunch of compliments. And I managed to fry things in two pans without ever setting off the smoke detector or burning myself on hot oil. That didn't happen the last time I made latkes, so progress.
In other news, politics continues to be terrifying and I'm still on a fairly high news moratorium--I see headlines, I decide "I can't even" and move on. Sanders and I are talking about starting a political blog, just so we have somewhere to vent properly.
The migraines have been...interesting lately. They're not hitting me as hard--sometimes, but sometimes it's not as terrible as it could be--and they seem to be starting more frequently but they're also ending sooner than I'm used to.
I'm overdue for Botox but I'm having an insurance snafu at the moment; when I left my job, my benefits terminated on the last day of my employment. I'm now covered under Morgan's insurance, but when my neuro wanted a preauth for the Botox the insurance company said that my benefits with them were secondary to my insurance that no longer exists, so I have to call them tomorrow and wrangle this out so they can auth my doctor to inject poison into my head so my migraines can stop.
I will say that I do think I'm having more luck with the migraines and with breaking the migraines now that I'm off the opioids. I switched to cannabis because it frankly works better and leaves me functional, and I think it's affecting more than just pain relief. However, I'm still getting like 1-2 migraines a week so it's not a panacea.
Homeowner stuff: We had to replace our downstairs toilet Thursday. It's been kind of problematic for a while--you had to work the handle just right to keep it from running. But Wednesday it started running and wouldn't stop until I jury-rigged the tank to keep the float high enough it wouldn't. I called the plumber and they came out first thing Thursday morning, and told me either I needed to rebuild the tank mechanism or replace the toilet.
But these are the original toilets with the house and they're not old but they're also not great toilets. So rather than pay to fix a crappy toilet we might have to fix again soon, I opted to just replace the whole thing with a much better toilet. So now we have a Toto toilet downstairs.
However that was more expensive than I had planned on. I am certain, as is my dad, that a toilet can be replaced much more cheaply than what we paid for it, but we were kind of in a time crunch and I bit the bullet. I do want to replace the toilet in my bathroom once I'm working again, so when that happens we'll figure it out.
I have a post on books coming but today is not the day for it.
Happy Holidays, everyone, regardless of what you observe.
This entry was originally posted at http://blueraccoon.dreamwidth.org/1376820.html. Please comment there. |
comments
I made chicken soup, matzo balls, and latkes because I was going for as Jewish as I could get without having to make a brisket.
The soup came out fantastically well, even for me. I made it slightly differently this time than I have in the past and it came out incredible. I forgot to put the dill in at first and when Morgan and I tasted it at the hour mark we were both like "Wait...something's missing" and then I remembered and added the dill and it was much better. I'm not a big fan of onions--I like the flavor, it's a texture thing--so I haven't put them in my soup before, but I threw in an onion yesterday and I think it made a really big difference. Will do again.
I don't have a soup recipe exactly but how I make it is as follows:
1. Pat dry chicken and put in big stockpot
2. Add vegetables; I usually add about two to three whole carrots and two ribs of celery, plus now one onion. You won't eat the vegetables with the soup so I generally just cut them into large chunks.
3. Add salt, peppercorns (I use whole peppercorns instead of ground pepper. Use more of each than you think you'll need.)
4. Fill pot with cold water and set on stove to boil.
5. When water boils, skim off the foam that collects on top.
6. After skimming off foam, add dill (if you add it before you end up skimming off the dill along with the foam), add more salt, set pot on simmer slightly covered.
7. Leave for however long you want. I usually let it simmer for a couple hours; more than 2 isn't necessary IMO.
8. Check soup at 1 hour mark and taste-test; add more salt if necessary.
9. Final taste test; add more whatever, maybe simmer a little longer, then you're done.
10. Take solids out of chicken stock and let them cool; vegetables can get thrown out, but I usually shred the chicken and add most of it back to the soup. This method makes a super tasty poached chicken.
I have found the best way to get layered flavor in my soup is to add salt at a few points while cooking, so I salt the water before I boil it, then I salt again, then I salt at the hour mark and yesterday I added a touch more at the end. You will need more salt than you think you do. I love salt, but I don't over-salt my cooking because not everyone loves it like me. Which is why I always have extra taste-testers because I can't always tell when I have used enough salt. But Morgan, my dad and I all agreed I'd hit it out of the park with this one.
My matzo ball recipe is literally the one on the Manischevitz can of matzo meal, except instead of broth/water I use seltzer or club soda. Makes them fluffy. They didn't come out quite as fluffy as I wanted last night but everyone else loved them so whatev. And I made just enough, we had three leftover.
For the latkes I did what I usually do when I need recipes and turned to the NYT cooking site (which is actually a really awesome resource). Melissa Clark, one of their food writers, had published a "Classic potato latke" recipe and since I trust Melissa implicitly on recipes I opted to go with it. But all latkes are basically the same: About two parts potato to one part onion, two eggs for about every pound of potatoes, half a cup of flour or matzo meal for every lb of potatoes, some salt, and the recipe I used yesterday had me add baking powder but I'm not sure why.
Grate the potatoes and onion coarsely (oh my God I could not have done this without my food processor and its grating disc. That was fantastic), wring out all the water, mix in the other ingredients, fry until golden brown on both sides--it took about 5-6 min per side last night but I was making thicker latkes than I think maybe I should have. But everyone loved them, including me. I made a test latke to see how I liked it and my first reaction upon taking a bite (other than "holy shit, hot") was "Now that is what a latke should taste like".
I meant to double the recipe but I accidentally tripled it, so we had a ton of latke mix. I did make about 2/3 of it and I could have made more last night to finish it but no one was actually hungry and I was tired of cooking, so I opted to stop. (People said they would have eaten more had I made them but no one was hungry for more so I said I was done).
Today our kitchen is a disaster because we left the cleanup for today, but my dad's coming over in about 3 hours to help with it because I told him and Morgan that I'd done almost all the cooking, they could do the cleanup. Then the three of us are actually going to see Rogue One.
(almost all the cooking means I did everything except peel and chop potatoes, and Dad finished grating them for me so I could make matzo balls).
I meant to make the soup Friday, so I could skim off the fat on Saturday and use the schmaltz to fry the latkes, but it ended up not happening.
But overall, I give myself an A on the food because no one had complaints and I got a bunch of compliments. And I managed to fry things in two pans without ever setting off the smoke detector or burning myself on hot oil. That didn't happen the last time I made latkes, so progress.
In other news, politics continues to be terrifying and I'm still on a fairly high news moratorium--I see headlines, I decide "I can't even" and move on. Sanders and I are talking about starting a political blog, just so we have somewhere to vent properly.
The migraines have been...interesting lately. They're not hitting me as hard--sometimes, but sometimes it's not as terrible as it could be--and they seem to be starting more frequently but they're also ending sooner than I'm used to.
I'm overdue for Botox but I'm having an insurance snafu at the moment; when I left my job, my benefits terminated on the last day of my employment. I'm now covered under Morgan's insurance, but when my neuro wanted a preauth for the Botox the insurance company said that my benefits with them were secondary to my insurance that no longer exists, so I have to call them tomorrow and wrangle this out so they can auth my doctor to inject poison into my head so my migraines can stop.
I will say that I do think I'm having more luck with the migraines and with breaking the migraines now that I'm off the opioids. I switched to cannabis because it frankly works better and leaves me functional, and I think it's affecting more than just pain relief. However, I'm still getting like 1-2 migraines a week so it's not a panacea.
Homeowner stuff: We had to replace our downstairs toilet Thursday. It's been kind of problematic for a while--you had to work the handle just right to keep it from running. But Wednesday it started running and wouldn't stop until I jury-rigged the tank to keep the float high enough it wouldn't. I called the plumber and they came out first thing Thursday morning, and told me either I needed to rebuild the tank mechanism or replace the toilet.
But these are the original toilets with the house and they're not old but they're also not great toilets. So rather than pay to fix a crappy toilet we might have to fix again soon, I opted to just replace the whole thing with a much better toilet. So now we have a Toto toilet downstairs.
However that was more expensive than I had planned on. I am certain, as is my dad, that a toilet can be replaced much more cheaply than what we paid for it, but we were kind of in a time crunch and I bit the bullet. I do want to replace the toilet in my bathroom once I'm working again, so when that happens we'll figure it out.
I have a post on books coming but today is not the day for it.
Happy Holidays, everyone, regardless of what you observe.
This entry was originally posted at http://blueraccoon.dreamwidth.org/1376820.html. Please comment there. |
comments