THE PERFECT RECIPE FOR…
Potatoes and Pumpkins
Here for your cooking, baking and dining pleasure is a compilation of recipes from twelve articles and classes focusing on Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. Since the second night of Hanukkah coincides with Thanksgiving this year, I have created three categories of recipes:
1. Hanukkah (evening of November 27 [first candle] – December 5) These dishes contain oil for frying or as a prominent ingredient, symbolic of the oil that tradition tells us miraculously burned for eight days when the Maccabees rededicated the Temple. Other recipes feature cheese, in celebration of the heroine Judith, who, we are told in the Apocrypha, was able to kill the enemy general Holofernes by serving him cheese to make him thirsty and then putting him into a drunken sleep with wine to quench that thirst.
2. Thanksgiving (November 28) These recipes all are parve (non-dairy) so that they can be served at a kosher meal with the traditional Thanksgiving turkey.
3. Hanukkah and Thanksgiving (November 28, the first day and second evening [second candle] of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving Day) These dishes feature oil and so highlight Hanukkah during the Thanksgiving festivities. Many people might miss latkes (pancakes) on this night, but with opportunities to serve them on seven other days of Hanukkah, it seems best not to try this on a day when there is often a bigger crowd to serve and more dishes than usual to prepare. Of course latke recipes are included in the first segment, so cooks with lots of help will not want for ideas.
If you are seeking even more delicious recipes, or if you want to read more about either holiday, you can find more reading here.