Enter baked latkes.

My mom gave me a recipe for baked latkes a few years ago, and while I was definitely skeptical, I gave them a try.

I know, I know, nothing baked tastes as good as the same thing fried. And if you’ve got plenty of Hanukkah helpers in the kitchen, I’d always choose the fried ones. But these light and crisp baked latkes are surprisingly good, and they’re much, much easier to prepare.

Here’s the recipe. Enjoy! (And thanks, Mom!)

Audrey’s Baked Potato Pancakes

Method:

Preheat oven to 450°F (230°C).
Grate the potatoes. You can use a food processor if you prefer; just don’t grate them too finely. Press them to squeeze out as much water as you can.
Add salt and three of the four egg whites. Stir to blend. If the potatoes don’t seem to hold together enough to make a pancake, add the additional egg white.
Generously oil two cookie sheets. Using half the potato mixture, scoop potatoes onto a cookie sheet in eight mounds. Gently flatten each mound into a 3-inch-wide (7.5-cm) pancake. Repeat with the remaining potato mixture.
Bake for 12-15 minutes until pancakes are beginning to set. Turn them over and bake for another 10-15 minutes until golden and crisp.
Serve immediately, with sour cream and applesauce on the side.

Yield: 16 pancakes.

Notes:
You can make the latkes smaller if you like. You may need to reduce the cooking time by a minute or two on each side.
You can also add finely grated onion to the potato mixture.

Happy Hanukkah, and Tasty Travels!

Carolyn

This week, we have a guest post from Emily Segal, a Holistic Nutrition Coach and food blogger who lives in Israel. She writes about the traditional foods that Israelis eat during Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year, which begins tonight) and the challenges of adapting traditional recipes for a vegan diet. She shares some recipes she created, too. Here’s Emily:

Israel’s food scene today is an eclectic mix of European, North African, and Middle Eastern dishes.  But even in this great culinary melting pot, there are traditional holiday foods considered as sacrosanct as turkey on Thanksgiving. On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, there are also symbolic foods chosen for their seasonal availability, and for the similarity in their appearance and/or names to concepts such as good luck, financial prosperity, fertility, and national peace – all worthy New Year wishes.

Sliced carrots are eaten because they resemble coins. The head of a fish or sheep is served so that we may be “the head and not the tail”. Pomegranates, which figure prominently in the celebration, allegedly contain 613 seeds, the precise number of good deeds commanded of every observant Jew. Other traditional dishes include a variety of stuffed vegetables, like cabbage, eggplant, and zucchini, all said to symbolize abundance and fertility.

Even the Talmud states “Since symbols are meaningful, everyone should eat the following on the New Year: gourds, black-eyed peas, leeks, beets, and dates.” These foods were specified because their names in Hebrew or Aramaic are similar to other words signifying: recognition for good deeds, abundance, and the elimination of enemies.

As a Vegan concerned with nutrition and health, I have added an additional unique twist to the traditional foods: My chopped liver is made from string beans, walnuts, and lentils. My stuffed cabbage is filled with tempeh and mushrooms. My “chicken” soup is made from vegetable broth and my soup dumplings are a mix of chickpea flour and semolina. My holiday desserts are baked without eggs and sweetened without honey.

It took a bit of experimentation in the kitchen, but I created an entire holiday menu that tastes delicious and will please both omnivores expecting a traditional meal, as well as vegans and vegetarians.

Today I wanted to share with my fellow wanderfoodies, a dish of sweet and savory carrots, so that we may all experience a new year filled with abundance in all things. Traditionally, this dish would be sweetened with honey, but since honey isn’t vegan, I have used silan, a syrup made from dates. You could substitute molasses, maple syrup, or agave nectar.

For the rest of my Vegan Rosh Hashanah menu, you can visit my website HERE.

Spicy Carrots with Sweet Silan Glaze

• 1 lb (500 g) carrots (about 5 medium carrots)
• pinch of sea salt
• 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 5 cloves of garlic, pressed
• 3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• ¼ cup water
• few dashes of Tabasco or your favorite hot sauce
• ½ tsp paprika
• 1-2 Tbsp silan

Peel carrots and slice them into discs. Put them in a saucepan, sprinkle with salt, and just cover with water. Bring to a boil, then cover, lower heat, and simmer until the carrots are soft (about 20 minutes). Drain the carrots. Dry the saucepan, then add the oil and fry the garlic for about 30 seconds. Don’t let it burn! Add the remaining ingredients and cook for 5 minutes. Add the carrots back into the pan with the sauce and cook uncovered for 5 more minutes until the carrots are coated. Serve hot or cold.

Happy New Year!

Emily Segal is a Holistic Nutrition Coach, currently living in Israel. Her nutrition-based food blog can be found at www.TriumphWellness.com/blog.

Photo credits:
Pomegranate photo by ahisgett (flickr)
All other photos ©Emily Segal

If you’re lucky enough to be in Toronto this week, I hope you’re catching some great movies at the Toronto International Film Festival. This year’s celebration of new films runs through September 18.

I’m afraid I can’t tell you where George Clooney or Madonna or Brad Pitt are going to eat. Or the best spots for spotting other celebs (although the Huffington Post has some ideas for seeing stars).

But I can tell you about a few low-key Toronto joints, where the atmosphere is far from glam but the food is Oscar-worthy.

Chinese dumplings are one of my go-to comfort dishes. And Mother’s Dumplings, in Toronto’s original Chinatown, makes first-rate jiaozi, the steamed or boiled dumplings native to northeastern China.

The speedy staff stuff and fold fresh dumplings all day, starting with classics like pork and cabbage or shrimp, egg, and chive. They even make an unusual variety with a whole wheat dough and a pork-and-pickled-cabbage filling.

Be sure to order an assortment of cold plates, like spicy kimchi or garlicky cucumbers, to accompany your steamers of dumplings. My favorite is the “tofu strip salad,” bean curd with peppers and fragrant cilantro.

If “cafeteria” and “Persian food” don’t seem like a star-studded pairing, give this offbeat script another reading. Camros Organic Eatery is a cheery cafe (off the radar behind the Bloor-Yonge station) serving Persian-influenced stews, rice dishes, and salads—just the place a vegetarian starlet might hide from the paparazzi.

Among the rotating selection of dishes, you might find gheyme (a lentil and potato stew scented with limes and plums), cabbage rolls stuffed with minty brown rice, or an excellent fresh kale salad with slivers of beets and a lemony dressing.

You don’t have to be a film-industry fat cat to eat at the Fat Cat Wine Bar, a laid-back neighborhood bistro out near High Park. You just have to appreciate nibbles like gorgonzola crostini with kale and raisins, pork belly confit paired with apple slaw, or shrimp baked in a piri piri-garlic butter sauce.

Many of their wines, including lots of Ontario labels, come in three- and six-ounce pours, the better to sample different types and still make it to the theatre before the lights go down.

If you go…

The Toronto International Film Festival screens more than 300 movies from over 60 countries every September. This year’s event continues until September 18.

Mother’s Dumplings, 421 Spadina Ave., 416-217-2008.

Camros Organic Eatery, 25 Hayden St., 416-960-0723.

Fat Cat Wine Bar, 331 Roncesvalles Ave., 416-535-4064.

For more information about things to see and do in Toronto, check out Tourism Toronto.

Do you have any good celebrity spotting stories? Please leave a comment and share (especially if they have to do with food)!

And if you’re a food blogger, here’s how to link your post to WanderFood Wednesday.

Photo credits:
Winona Ryder at TIFF in 2010 by karon.liu (flickr)
Lentils by mote (flickr)
All other photos ©Carolyn B. Heller