pizza latkes

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Sometime last spring (when all of the good Hanukkah R and D happens), I was knee deep in latke brainstorming when my extremely cool friend Natasha texted me a picture of Erin’s cheesy potato pancake with the commentary “omg, pizza latke.” To which the only proper response was, “omg, let’s.” 

Because omg what is better than a crispy fried potato pancake that is topped with melty gooey cheese-pull cheese??? Or if you look at it the other way, what is better than a pizza that basically has a hash brown crust??? Potato, potahto, it was inevitable. We make matzo pizza on Passover pizza Friday, why have we not made pizza latkes on Hanukkah pizza Friday? Dang it, they are so freaking good. I can’t stop eating them. The fact that they’re handheld and small and easy to eat in multiples of four doesn’t make things any easier. My only regret is that Natasha and I never crossed paths for long enough to make these together because she lives in LA-slash-Barcelona. One day!!!!

A great added bonus about these is that because they get cooked twice (fried in a pan, then topped with toppings, and then stuck in the oven so that the cheese melts), you have a fairly easy solution to the thing I always whine about, which is having to stand at the stove for the entire Chrismukkah party, tending to the latkes. With these, just make all of your latkes ahead of time, put them on a baking sheet, top with toppings, and keep them in the fridge for up to a day before your party. And then stick them in the oven before the party and pull out a steaming hot tray of latkes! They won’t be as crispy as a freshly fried latke, but no one will care because they’ll be covered in cheese.

That’s all I have to say about pizza latkes but since we’re on the subject of latkes, I have to tell you about the Ultimate Hanukkah Challenge!! It is (Food Network’s first??) Hanukkah-themed cooking competition and I got to host it and judge alongside Duff Goldman and Sharone Hakman!!! You guys, it was so much fun to film. I wore sufganiyot nail decals and star of David sparkly hair clips and ate piles of latkes, sufganiyot, and brisket. I can’t give any spoilers obviously but there are plot twists and Hanukkah miracles and the most incredible personalities, I am so excited about it and I hope you’ll tune in on December 21st at 9pm/8c on Food Network!!!! 

Pizza Latkes

Makes about 20

Ingredients

1 batch of latkes (here’s my go-to recipe), freshly fried or made a day ahead and cooled, or just use leftover latkes! 

About 1 c marinara sauce

1 lb fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/4” slices

(Any other toppings!)

A shower of parmesan

Sprinkles of crushed red pepper

Chopped fresh basil

Clues

Preheat the oven to 450ºf. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and arrange the latkes an inch apart. Top each with about 2 teaspoons marinara sauce and a slice of mozzarella and any other toppings you’d like and stick in the oven until the cheese is melty and has brown splotchy spots; begin checking for doneness at 7 minutes. Top with a shower of parmesan, sprinkles of crushed red pepper, and basil, and devour. 

stollen bars

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This time last year when I was a million months pregnant, I got the wildest craving for Stollen, the yeasted spiced Christmas cake that has a bunch of tasty mix-ins (most notably, marzipan). This craving came out of nowhere because I don’t think I’d even ever had Stollen before?! I guess I wanted all of the warm spices and a cake with not too much sweetness, and, obviously, marzipan. Because, spoiler alert, I am approximately 75% marzipan during the holiday season. But then when I started looking for recipes, I realized I wanted something with a little more instant gratification because I was too impatient to let stuff rise. I also wanted a softer moister denser texture than a yeasted cake could give me. After searching high and low, I came across Dan Lepard’s Stollen bars!! They are a stroke of genius and delivered everything I was looking for: a buttery soft blondie-like consistency, loads of flavor, hidden surprises like chewy dried fruit and toasty pistachios, not too much required in the way of time or energy, and gigantic chunks of marzipan. GIGANTIC CHUNKS OF MARZIPAN!!! They were SO GOOD!!! I made multiple batches and gifted them all over the place. My only challenge was that the recipe was written in British and required a lot of Googling and trial and error to figure out suitable equivalents to “mixed spice” and strong white flour, as well as the meaning of “sultana.” I also ended up throwing in some dried cherries because I’m in a dried cherry phase, and some orange zest and almond extract because they tie all of these flavors together soo nicely. 

So here is my version of Dan’s bars and, ugh, I am obsessed with these. I love the earthy understated look. They’re sturdy, reliable, low maintenance (make them ahead! they last for a few weeks!), and all around delicious. The cream cheese in the dough adds a sparkle of tang and melted butter brushed on top combines with a storm of powdered sugar for a wintery rustic alternative to glaze. If colorful frosted sugar cookies are the fancy sequined holiday party dress that you’ve been planning on wearing for months, these bars are the very comfortable jeggings and oversized sweater that you decide to wear at the last minute with absolutely no regrets!

Stollen Bars

Makes 25 squares

Ingredients

2 c (260g) all-purpose flour

2/3 c (75g) almond flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

A pinch of ground cloves

A pinch of allspice

3/4 c (168g) unsalted butter, divided, at room temperature

4 oz (112g) cream cheese, room temperature

1 c (200g) sugar

Zest of 1 orange

1 large egg

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/3 c (53g) dried cherries

1/3 c (53g) golden raisins

1 c (112g) roasted pistachios

8 oz (227g) marzipan, chopped into 3/4” pieces

1/3 c (40g) powdered sugar

Clues

Preheat the oven to 350ºf. Grease an 8” square pan and line with parchment paper so that 1” wings come up on two sides. Set it aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, cardamom, cloves, and allspice. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat together 1/2 cup of the butter, the cream cheese, sugar, and orange zest on medium high until pale and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add the egg and almond extract and beat until combined. Reduce the speed to low and then beat in the dry ingredients followed by the cherries, raisins, and pistachios. Fold in the marzipan pieces by hand. Scrape into the pan and spread it out evenly with your hands or a rubber spatula. Bake until golden around the edges and lightly browned on top; begin checking for doneness at 28 minutes. 

Spread the remaining 1/4 cup of butter all over the top while it’s still hot out of the oven so that the butter melts and then sprinkle with powdered sugar. Let cool in the pan and then cut into squares and enjoy! Keep in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for up to two weeks.

-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett quernemoen

kale, pancetta, and white bean cobbler

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Baby Beluga has officially been replaced in our house by Biscuits in the Oven as the #1 most sung song. Raffi enthusiasts: am I right that it’s so catchy and much more fun to jiggle and dance to than Baby Beluga? Also the imagery of biscuits in the oven makes me ever so slightly more excited than a little white whale on the go. Golden fluffy hot biscuits on a wet snowy cozy day! My dreamscape. And the jolliness in Bernie’s eyes whenever I put her in front of the mirror and bobble her up and down to the tune makes an even dreamier dreamscape. So for that reason (and because Thanksgiving is coming up), I’m sharing biscuits on top of a gigantic pile of greens that are dotted with pancetta and creamy cannellini beans. This is my current favorite way to shovel greens into my mouth, it’s so good. And dare I say that this is a hotdish??? It’s got veggies, protein, a carby topping, and soup situation holding it together. It gets baked in a casserole... it’s hearty... it’s a meal in a dish. Yes, we’re going with it, people!

Sam Sifton says that salad has no place at the Thanksgiving table and I agree. (By the way have you read his Thanksgiving book? I take it out every year and it’s a true delight.) Hearty cooked greens should be at your table though! There is so much flavor in these greens from the saltiness of the pancetta and a hit of acidity from some ACV, and the biscuits on top bake up beautifully (even if you use store-bought like I did! Don’t tell anyone). On Girl Meets Farm this past weekend I did an option for those who need to reserve oven space for the turkey: I cooked this in a slow cooker and used bread dough instead of biscuits. The dough on top gets steamed into DUMPLINGS! It’s really cool. But I wanted to show both options, and the baked biscuit version is a little prettier, which is why I’m posting it here.

And by the way this was the last meal I cooked at home before I went into labor! It was my last day of work before maternity leave, back in March, and I was testing this and the corn cranberry cupcakes that were also on the Thanksgiving episode and as soon as I was done, I went to sleep but then woke up because I was in labor. Hah! I think we had leftovers of this in our fridge for weeks because there were many things on our minds but cleaning out the leftovers in our refrigerator were not one of them. OK, the end!

Kale, Pancetta, and White Bean Cobbler

serves 6-8 as a side

ingredients

1 lb thick cut pancetta, diced

2 large shallots, finely chopped

Kosher salt

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lb collard greens, stemmed and chopped

1 lb kale, stemmed and chopped

1 1/2 c chicken stock 

1 (14 oz) can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed

Black pepper

A few shakes of Tabasco

1 tb brown sugar

2 tb Apple cider vinegar

1 can biscuits or 1 batch homemade biscuits

Egg wash: an egg beaten with a splash of water

Flaky salt

clues

Preheat oven to 425ºf. In a 3-quart oven-safe dutch oven or braiser, cook the pancetta over medium heat until crispy. Transfer to a plate using a slotted spoon and keep the fat in the pan. Add the shallots and a pinch of salt and cook until soft, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the greens in batches, cooking until slightly wilted (it’s a lot of greens! but they cook down). Add the stock, beans, 1/2 tsp salt, pepper, tabasco, brown sugar, and apple cider vinegar, and return the pancetta to the pot and stir to combine. Top with biscuits, brush with egg wash, sprinkle with flaky salt, and bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

sumac snickerdoodles

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Hii!!!! How are you and how was your Halloween and are you in the holiday spirit yet?? We had such a fun first Halloween with Bernie!! She had a Halloween feast of squash (cause it’s orange!) and then donned her fleece lemon costume to trick or treat at Aunt Ethel’s building where she made friends with a Twizzler, or more specifically the crunchy wrapper of the Twizzler. It fascinated her all night long. Eggboy and I split a tiny box of Milk Duds and then ate spinach salads before going to bed by 9. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Going to bed by 9 is, like, how I get my thrills these days because being well rested is such an excellent high? Also, I’m now filming (season 5!) and my call time in the morning is very early o’clock, meaning I have to wake up six minutes before very early o’clock in order to brush my teeth and then commute from my bedroom to the kitchen. 

It’s gonna be a great season! It includes:

  1. A Passover episode, complete with our new Marian Bull Seder plate that I want to stare at all day long every day

  2. An appearance by one of my all time favorite bands

  3. Hockey, hockey stars (!), broomball, curling, Alana curling, and ice skating

  4. KNOEPHLA!!!!!

I know I say this about every season but I think this season is going to be the tastiest yet. And not just because it has the best mozzarella sticks and gruyere babka rolls of all time but also because Bernie’s cheeks have reached peak deliciousness (thank you to my grandpa and dad for those). 

Enough about me, I am going to talk about my frond Michelle now!!! Her book, Weeknight Baking, came out last week and it has SPRINKLE END PAPERS. And a recipe for one (1!) chocolate chip cookie that is just plain dangerous. And billions upon gajillions of tips for how to bake things in advance or speed things up or spread the work out over the course of a few days in order to make it fit any kind of crazy busy schedule. It’s baking efficiency at its tastiest and I love it. Like she’s even making me feel like I can bake a dang wedding cake over the course of a few Bernie naps. For those of you who liked the bake-ahead tips in this post, this book takes this type of thing to the next level. And all the while it offers deeeelicious ideas like halva blondies (!!!) and excellent styling tips like how to get perfectly straight edges when you cut cheesecake bars. This book is so clever, informational, beautiful, and delicious and I’m a proud kvelling frond right now.

One thing that Michelle and I share, other than the fact that we both have quiet reserved Nordic partners, is a love of sumac. Specifically, sumac in sweets! It’s so bright and fun! I sometimes think of sumac as ground up lemony vinegar, if vinegar were a solid. So like if you’re into lemon sour patch kids, you will like sumac’d sweets. (NY Shuk makes a great sumac, by the way.) Michelle made a delicious move in her book and rolled snickerdoodle cookie dough in a sumac/raspberry magic dust and the world is a tastier place for it. These cookies are sweet, tangy bright, crisp around the edges, and soft and chewy in the middle. They’re sassier than you’re average cookie and so pretty! Look at that natural pink color! I love these. And I love Michelle and Weeknight Baking. Yay!!!

raspberry sumac snickerdoodles

makes about 20 cookies

from michelle lopez's weeknight baking: recipes to fit your schedule

ingredients

for the raspberry sumac topping

1/4 c (1.75 oz) granulated sugar

2 heaping tb freeze-dried raspberries, finely ground

2 tsp ground sumac

for the cookies

2 3/4 c (12.35 oz) all-purpose flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 c (10.5 oz) granulated sugar

1 c (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 large eggs

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

clues

position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400ºF. line two half sheet pans with parchment paper.

in a medium bowl, combine all topping ingredients and set aside.

in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the sugar and butter. beat on medium-high until light, fluffy, and doubled in volume, 2 to 3 minutes, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl as necessary. reduce the mixer to low and add the eggs one at a time, adding the next egg only after the previous one has bee fully incorporated. add the vanilla and beat until just combined. scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl. with the mixer on low, gradually add the dry ingredients and beat until just combined. scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl once more, and beat on low for an additional 30 seconds.

use a 3-tablespoon cookie dough scoop to portion the cookie dough into balls. roll each in the snickerdoodle topping, covering them completely. place the coated cookies at least 3 inches apart on the prepared sheet pans. bake one pan at a time for 10 minutes, or until the edges have set but the centers are still gooey. the cookies will look puffed when you pull them out of the oven, but will fall and crack into the perfect cookies as they cool. cool the cookies on the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes, or until the edges and bottoms of the cookies have set and feel firm to the touch. repeat with the remaining cookie dough (or freeze it to bake later). serve warm or at room temperature. the cookies can be stored in an airtight container or zip-top bag at room temperature for up to 3 days.