Merry Happy ChrismaHanukkah

This year, the first night of Hanukkah fell out on Saturday, December 24th. This meant that the food stores were crazy busy late in the week, and weren’t open at all on Saturday night or Sunday. We never go food shopping during Shabbos, so the fact that many stores were open on Saturday until noon or 2:00 PM didn’t help us.

Normally, Hanukkah is much earlier in the month, and when Christmas rolls around we hang around at home and make due with whatever groceries I’d remembered to buy. If we’re out of ingredients for one thing, we’ll make something else instead. But we like to make special foods for Hanukkah.

There have been years when I’ve made latkes every night for a week. And there have been years when I’ve been satisfied to make them at least once during the entire holiday. But since the first night of Hanukkah fell out on a Saturday night, and Leah was here for Shabbos, of COURSE we’re going to make 2 or 3 different kinds of latkes! We made traditional white potato latkes and sweet potato latkes, and Leah thawed a bag of frozen spinach for spinach latkes that never got made.

Halfway through cooking, I realized that I hadn’t bought QUITE enough eggs before Shabbos. We had enough for Saturday night’s latkes, but there wasn’t enough to make another huge batch on Sunday. I’d forgotten to buy sour cream or Greek yogurt, and there was no place open to buy more. We DID have applesauce in the house, but not quite as much as I thought we did. One medium-sized jar, plus enough overripe apples for a small batch of homemade.

All in all, it was a delicious dinner, even if it wasn’t nutritionally balanced.

Making latkes again on Sunday wasn’t an option, so we had Shabbos leftovers for dinner instead. Monday, I went food shopping, and bought 2 large jars of applesauce, 6 dozen eggs, plus more potatoes, sweet potatoes, and zucchini. By the time I came home and put away the groceries, I no longer had energy to cook anything, so we had leftovers again last night.

I’m hoping to make latkes for tonight’s dinner: a batch of sweet potato latkes, a batch of zucchini latkes, and beef burgers, all served with applesauce.

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