Failed miserably.
I tried to have my coffee.
Failed miserably.
And then I started feeling crappy. Which is always joyful when its the SECOND ANNUAL JEWSHI NIGHT. I had 7 people coming for sushi, latkas and sufganiyot. You know, typical Channukah foods. At this point, I seriously debated whether I should just buy a sushi platter from T&T, and forget about the rest. But no. Longo's had a beautiful chunk of tuna and I knew I was stuck for it.
I started with the sufganiyot. If you've never had them, they are to die for. If you are not Jewish and have no idea what I am talking about, sufganiyot are like donuts. Unless of course, you are Israeli, and then they are NOTHING LIKE DONUTS AT ALL. Except they are exactly like donuts.
Moving on.
My sista from anutha mutha Aneta makes the BEST sufganiyot I have ever had. Like, EVER. She was going to make regular ones, and I was going to modify her recipe to make spelt ones with no cow dairy so that Alan could eat them.
So, to 2 cups spelt flour add 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. Add 3 Tablespoons of sugar and whisk together. I forgot to do that and added the next bit before I realized. 2 large eggs or 3 small eggs.
Oh well. Add a cup of sheep yoghurt. (I like it much more than goat yoghurt which flavors everything a little goaty, which I *don't* like). Add 1/2 cup of water, and 1/2 a cup of sparkling water. It helps make lighter donuts. Sorry, sufganiyot.
I used this.
Mix it all together until you have a nice smooth batter and set it aside until you are ready for frying.
Channukah is the festival of lights and we celebrate by frying the crap out of everything. It is not a kind holiday to my ass, generally. But it sure is tasty.
Ok, on to the latka portion. I took a bunch of yukon gold potatoes.
I washed them, dried them, and grated MOST of them in my cuisinart. I kept a couple back to pulverize through the cuisinart. I shredded an onion, some garlic cloves and a zucchini too. To this mixture I added 2 eggs, salt and pepper.
Stir it all together, and it is ready for frying.
I got out my two large frying pans, added some EVOO and set the heat to medium high. Once the oil is hot enough, you start dropping spoonfuls of batter into the pan. Fry until golden, flip and fry the other side. Drain on paper towels, and you can put it in tin foil to keep warm in oven until you are ready to eat them.
I already was feeling pretty crappy, and didn't even want to taste them, no matter how golden, crispy and delicious they looked.
At this point, I was ready to start frying the sufganiyot. I heated up a pot of EVOO, and threw in a piece of carrot. This seems to help stuff not burn. I don't know how it works, I just know that it does. It is probably better to use some form of vegetable or canola oil for this, but I don't have any, and I don't really like them, so I used what was at hand. My Kirkland organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. (from Costco). Sure, it makes it a bit heavier, but overall, who cares? It still tastes damn good, and nobody complained.
Heat the oil on a medium high stove, and when the oil is ready, drop in small spoonfuls of batter.
Flip when necessary to fry the other side. When golden, use a slotted spoon to remove and drain on paper towel. Put in a bowl and dust with a whackload of icing sugar, and attempt to restrain yourself from eating them all.
On to the sushi. Now I have never taken a sushi class. I've always wanted to, but have never done it. So my sushi attempts are amateur at best, but are definitely improving over many years of practice. They don't fall apart like they used to, and they don't weigh you down because I put waaaaaaay too much rice in each roll. I have learned, through google and youtube that there are some tricks.
1. First rinse your sushi rice really really well.
2. Let is soak for half an hour after you've rinsed it really really well.
3. Once cooked, cut it gently with some rice vinegar and a bit of sugar. Let it cool.
4. Keep your hands moist when working with this rice, otherwise it will stick to you and not the seaweed.
5. Shmeer out a decent sized handful on a piece of seaweed, covering about 1/3 of the seaweed. Lay your fish, and whatever other things you wish to add in a thin line. I added salmon and tuna, avocado and thin spears of cucumber.
6. Roll. Thats about it. I made about 20 of them, with variations on the above ingredients.
I didn't bother to slice them up, because to be honest, at this point I could barely stand. Thats when I decided to take my temperature.
103. Oh joy.
In the end I made it through about half of the evening, and even managed to try a few bites of food. It was pretty well the last bites of food I had until today, Friday. I went down for the count with a nasty bug that I refered to as ebolaconsumptiontyphoidflububunicplague. Finally today, I am feeling better, although my voice sounds like Phoebe from "Friends" when she has that cold.. Thankfully, nobody else caught my ebolaconsumptiontyphoidflububonicplague.
I guess overall, this Channukah was quite kind to my ass, as I dropped almost 10 pounds. Normallly, I restrict myself to sufganiyot twice a year, because I EAT THEM. I may have to make an exception this year. I think my ass can take it. After all, the last batch didn't really count because I only tried one. Right?
