Potato Latkes

Hope everybody had a fun Hannukah! While the festival of lights is probably less important holiday than Hallmark would have you believe, it's a favorite for many, and is notable for my favorite traditional jewish food: Potato Latkes. They're easy, and while everybody's grandmother has her own special recipe, they are uniformly delicious. Here's how made mine this year:

Andouille and Cornbread Stuffing

As promised, here's one of my all time thanksgiving favorites: Andouille and Cornbread Stuffing (provided by the good people at epicurious). Mom found this recipe about 15 years back, and I haven't let a thanksgiving go by without it. Even two days before Balls' wedding, when his mother-in-law was hosting most of the wedding party for a traditional thanksgiving dinner. It''s stuffing, and it has two kinds of pig in it, what's not to like?

Courtesy Wikicommons.

So, it's pretty straightforward. First of all, make sure you have good Andouille. Good Andouille is really important to me in general. It should be well spiced, heavily smoked (and you should be able to tell by looking at it), and coarsely ground. You should be able to see be able to see chunks of pork in the sausage. Look at the pretty picture to the right, and you'll see what I mean. I try to go to my local market for fresh Andouille made by local butchers, but in a pinch, Aidell's sausages are easy to find at supermarkets and makes decent tasting dishes.

The Thanksgiving that kept on giving.

The Balls and Pie family was fortunate to spend a nice, quiet Thanksgiving together in a cozy cabin outside of Hamilton, MT. We were more fortunate to sit back and have our Thanksgiving catered by Executive Chef Toby McCracken. It went something like this: At around 3:30 thanksgiving day, food starting showing up at our door. Enough salad for 10 people. Brocolini and squash for 10. Turkey for 15. And then for good measure, roast Ham for about 10. Similar quantities of cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, warm rolls, butter, gravy, stuffing. Then, the hors d'oeuvres show up: a cheese plate including brie, smoked bacon cheddar, and pepper jack, a sorpressata and prosciutto plate, vegetable crudités, and orzo with poached shrimp.

And pumpkin and pecan pies. 

There were five of us. And a baby.