Happy New Year!

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for following along over the last year. 2010 was a pretty exciting and volatile year for me. It was the year I stopped musing and realized that Life is indeed what happens while you’re busy doing other things. And having figured that part out, actually did something about it. So, Welcome 2011! Can’t wait to see around the next corner!

But, the weekend’s not over yet, and if you need something for a special breakfast, brunch, a light supper, or even the hors d’oeuvre table, this Spinach Strata goes with just about anything you plan to serve – especially bubbly beverages. It’s also loaded with spinach – a good luck food – to bring you health and wealth in the New Year!

Spinach Strata

(Serves 4 as main dish; may be doubled or tripled as necessary)

Ingredients:

1 tsp. butter, margarine, or Smart Balance Light Spread
1 medium potato (about 9 oz.)
4 oz. sliced or shredded cheese (such as Swiss or mozzarella)
4 large eggs, beaten
2 Tbs. milk
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
2-3 cups baby spinach, uncooked
1 medium tomato, sliced thin
salt & pepper

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375º F. Grease a 1 quart oven-proof casserole dish with the butter.

Slice the potato very thinly. A small hand slicer or mandoline will be useful here. Line the bottom of the casserole with half of the potato slices, overlapping. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper. Lay half of the cheese over the potato slices.

Beat the eggs with the milk until combined, season with a little salt and pepper, and mix in the thyme leaves (which you’ve first stripped from their stems). Pour into the casserole.

Pile the spinach leaves evenly over the egg mixture and cover with the sliced tomato, followed by the remaining potato slices. Arrange the remaining cheese over the top, making certain to cover the potato slices completely.

Bake for 30-35 minutes and let cool for about 5 minutes before cutting, to allow the strata to set.

Notes:

Swiss cheese will create a crisp, cheesy crust on top (think frico), so if you’d prefer a softer and creamier top, use something like mozzarella.

Wait. How did it get to be December, already? Here I am, going about my business searching for new ways to dispose of leftover Thanksgiving turkey, and there it is on my calendar: Latke Week! Potato pancakes, that is. Chanukah came early this year, time to light colorful little candles and to commemorate the miracle of a little bottle of oil lasting eight days, by feasting on fried foods. Yum! I thought I’d kick things off with my favorite of them all: Potato Latkes.

Traditional Potato Latkes (Potato Pancakes)
(Makes about 12 4″ pancakes, depending on size)

Ingredients:

2 lbs. white potatoes
1 small onion (about 3 oz.)
1 large egg
1/3 cup matzo meal
2 tsp. kosher salt

Canola or peanut oil for frying

Preparation:

Grate the potatoes and onion together, either in a food processor or with a box grater. Drain off any water and place in a medium glass bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and stir by hand, using a sturdy wooden spoon.

Pour about 1/4 inch of oil into a large frying pan and heat it on high, till a couple of drops of water in the oil, pop. And I mean only a couple of drops! Otherwise, you’ll start your own Fourth of July sound effects going. Seriously.

Now, choose your size of pancake: For a larger latke, scoop up 1/4 cup of the potato mixture, and place it in the hot oil. Using your wooden spoon or a spatula, flatten out the mound to about 1/4″ thickness. If you want a smaller pancake, use 2 Tbs. of the potato mixture and flatten.

Fry each latke for about 3 minutes on each side, or until crispy and golden brown, and remove to a plate lined with paper towels. If you’re making a lot of latkes, you may have to add more oil to the pan. It shouldn’t take long for it to come back up to temperature.

Serve immediately with apple sauce, sour cream, or as we did when we were kids – a light sprinkling of sugar.

Notes:

My ninety-year old mother, bless her, still uses the fine side of a box grater to grate everything by hand. The potatoes seem to release less water that way. I gave that up years ago, though, using the shredding disc on my food processor and simply draining off the excess liquid before adding the other ingredients.

Use a glass or plastic bowl to mix the latke batter. A metal bowl will instantly make the potatoes start oxidizing and turn pink. It won’t hurt the latkes any, but they won’t be white inside. They’ll be pink. Or beige.

This recipe is easily doubled, or even tripled, if you’re cooking them up for a larger gathering. To keep the latkes hot and crispy, set your oven to 200º F, line a large baking sheet with newspaper and put one of your baking racks on top of that. After draining off each batch of latkes, put them on the rack and place the whole pan in the warm oven. They’ll keep in there for a couple of hours.

You can also make these ahead! Just cook as described, and when the cooked pancakes are completely cool, just put them in an airtight container or freezer bag(s) and chuck ‘em in the freezer. To serve, heat your oven to 350º F and lay out the latkes on a baking sheet. Heat for about 15 minutes, or until hot all the way through.

By the way, I just learned a new fact about Chanukah today, by way of an e-mail I received from Jason at BlogCatalog.com. Did you know that there are 16 accepted spellings of Hanukkah in the English language? Hanukkah, Chanukah, Hanukah, Hannukah, Chanuka, Chanukkah, Channukah, Chanukka, Hanukka, Hannuka,Hannukkah, Channuka, Xanuka, Hannukka, Channukka, and Chanuqa. There is, however, only one in Hebrew:

However you spell it, Happy Chanukah! Or Hanukkah!

Dinner by tangent. I’ll admit it. I was desperate for something to make for dinner that I could write about.

I happened to be surfing Twitter when I noticed that Mark Bittman will be at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in a week from now, talking about and reading from his new book, The Food Matters Cookbook. I follow Mark Bittman on Twitter (no, he doesn’t follow me – I’m one in 70,000+ for pity’s sake!), so I checked his Twitter stream, followed a link to his blog, and discovered that “Dinner With Bittman” was Bean and Potato Gratin from his How to Cook Everything.

Sounded right up my alley – especially since I had (almost) everything in my pantry. Here’s my variation:

Bean & Sweet Potato Gratin
(makes 2 dinner portions; 4 side dish portions)

1 15 oz. can white beans (I used Great Northern)
1 tsp. ground thyme (divided)
salt & pepper
approx. 2 medium sweet potatoes (about 1-1/2 lbs)
1/2 cup vegetable stock
3 Tbs. butter (divided)

Preheat the oven to 325º F.

Drain the beans and spread them in the bottom of a 1 quart baking dish. Season with 1/2 tsp. of ground thyme, salt and pepper lightly, and mix thoroughly.

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut in half, lengthwise, then slice them thinly into half rounds. Arrange the slices on top of the beans, overlapping them.

Add the vegetable stock to the dish, sprinkle with the remaining thyme, salt and pepper, and dot the top with half the butter. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes.

Uncover the dish, dot with the remaining butter, and bake uncovered for another 45 minutes.

*Notes:

The original recipe is made with “starchy white or all-purpose potatoes,” called for 1 cup of stock (chicken, vegetable or plain water), and is supposed to reduce to a rich glaze. That didn’t happen here. Either there was too much liquid, or the sweet potatoes aren’t starchy enough. In future, I will cut the liquid by half, and reflected that reduced amount here in my recipe.

All in all, we really liked this with the sweet potatoes. It was very colorful and the texture contrast of the sweet potato/bean combination was brighter and more flavorful than it would have been with the white potatoes.

Draw your own conclusions – try Mark Bittman’s Bean and Potato Gratin, then try this variation. Playing with your food is fun!

Hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but Corned Beef & Cabbage is not a traditional Irish dish. And, up until the last 20 or 30 years or so, St. Patrick’s Day was not really all that big a deal in Ireland, either. In fact, St. Patrick’s Day was regarded pretty much as a minor saint’s feast day.

No, all that changed here in America. We made St. Patrick’s Day what it is today, and likewise, today you can find St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and corned beef & cabbage in Ireland, because we expected it.

Nonetheless, if you really want to celebrate with traditional Irish fare, try some Colcannon alongside some poached salmon or tarragon-scented chicken. Oh, and don’t forget the Guinness!

Colcannon
(serves 6-8 as a side-dish)
Ingredients:

approx. 1 lb. cabbage or kale
2-3 lbs. potatoes
2 leeks, washed & sliced thinly (white & pale green parts only)
1 cup milk
1 stick butter (preferably Irish)
salt & pepper to taste

Method:

In separate pots, cook the cabbage or kale and the potatoes in salted water until tender (approx. 12-15 minutes).

In the meantime, cook the leeks in the milk over medium heat till the leeks are tender (approx. 8-10 minutes).

Chop the cabbage or kale and mash with the cooked potatoes, add the milk with leeks and the butter, salt & pepper to taste, mashing and stirring till well-blended. What you want is a smooth mashed potato consistency with interesting bits of cabbage and leeks throughout.

Make a small indentation on top and put an additional “knob” of butter in it to melt into a little pool.

Notes:

If you have a pasta pot with a vegetable steamer insert, I boil the potatoes in the pot and steam the cabbage simultaneously.

For extra authenticity – if your friends are single – you can hide a small ring in the Colcannon. Whoever finds it will be the next to marry. Traditionally, the Irish are fond of hiding things in certain foods as portents of things to come during the year. Of course, that’s an optional “ingredient”.

Enjoy!