Chanukah, Hanukka, Channuckah?

I never know how to spell it in English! Someone really needs to find a standardized way of spelling this holiday...
We ended up celebrating the holiday of lights only after it was over - this past Saturday. I made sweet potato latkes, and Mark made oven-baked sufganiot (yeast doughnuts). We lighted 9 candles, to symbolize the 9th night of Hanuka (See? Another spelling).




Of course, everybody knows that one is supposed to eat fried food on Hannukah, to commemorate the miracle of the oil that lasted 8 days instead of just one night. However, we don't like to cook with a lot of oil, and we don't even have a deep-fry pan, so we made the latkes on a non-stick griddle with hardly any oil, and the doughnuts in oven.
The doughnuts turned out very good, though resemblance to actual doughnuts is fairly faint. I guess they were more like yummy, fluffy sweet rolls with some raspberry preserves.

Cold Nights Call for Hot Soups

We had two new kinds of soup recently:

Navy Bean Brown Rice Soup

• 1 lb dry navy beans, soaked over night
• 2 celery sticks - sliced
  
• 4 tomatoes - chopped
  
• 1 onion - chopped
  
• 8 cloves of garlic - copped
  
• 1 cup of brown rice
• carrots - as much as you please - chopped/sliced
• bay leaf
• veggie broth
• crushed red pepper
• dried parsley
  

Start cooking the beans - start at least two hours before your meal time - in 6 cups of water. After about an hour, add the rice, and start cooking the other ingredients in a frying pan: Heat some oil, add the onion, and cook till it browns a bit. Add the garlic, then the celery and carrots. Add this veggie mix to the beans and rice, as well as the tomatoes, and cook on low. Add veggie broth and a couple more cups of water. Also add spices: bay leaf, parsley, crushed red pepper, and salt.
This soup can fill you up by itself, but we prefer to serve it with some delicious bread.

Sweet Potato Leek Soup

• 3 cups of sweet potato, finely diced
• 1 large onion, chopped
  
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 3 leeks, cut to rounds
• 4 cups of veggie broth
• 2 t cumin
• 2 t crushed red pepper
• 1 can coconut milk (400 ml)
  

In a big pot, heat some oil, and brown the onion. Add garlic, then leek. Cook for a little while, then add the spices. Stir for a few seconds, then add the broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes, and simmer for 10 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are soft. Puree and return to pot for reheating and add coconut milk.
I have spoken before about the amazing combination of leeks and sweet potatoes, and indeed, adding the coconut milk makes it even more heavenly.
We ate it with some yammy bread.

A Match Made in Heaven

Yes - sweet potatoes and leeks! Can anything be better than a combination of these two divine vegetables?



This sweet potato leek gratin was taken from The Vegetarian Times. It's not yet online, so here's what you do:
Slice 1-2 sweet potatoes (2 lb) - 1/8" thick, set aside

In a small non-stick pan over medium-high, heat 1 T olive oil, and saute for about 8 minutes:

• 3 leeks, white and light green parts chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1.5 T chopped rosemary
• salt and pepper

Layer sweet potato slices alternately with leek mix, so you end up with 3 layers of sweet potato and 2 layers of leeks. Sprinkle 1/3 c vegetable broth. Cover with foil.

Bake in 450 degrees F for about 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and sprinkle a mix of:

• 3 T breadcrumbs (Italian, or just add some Italian herbs and garlic powder)
• 1.5 T rosemary
• 2 T romano or parmesan cheese (optional)
• 1.5 t olive oil

Bake uncovered for 10-15 minutes more (until breadcrumbs are nice and golden-brown).
Wait a bit before serving (officially 8 servings, but for us it was 4).

The cheese is optional, so it qualifies as vegan. It's delicious, and pretty easy to make -- the hardest thing was to slice the sweet potato :)
So try it!
[Leeks for a reasonable price can be found at Lee Lee's.]

I Heart Sweet Potatoes

I found this recipe in a fellow Friday-Illustrator's blog, and I had to try it, using the leftover cooked sweet potatoes I had from making the hanukah balls.



The only thing I did different was that the sweet potatoes - both white and orange - were already cooked (in the microwave), and I used fresh tomatoes (3) and some tomato puree. It was really yammy.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi, In White

Sweet potatoes are so good just as they are, simply cooked, with a bit of salt. But they're also awesome as gnocchi.



We had them with just melted butter and sage. Simple yet delicious!