Hi all,
I guess we’ve been subliminally building up our appetites for Chanukkah for a couple days now — even without our knowledge. It all started off while we were thinking about a planning a trip to England.
I was wondering what ‘shire (though I was pretty sure it wasn’t The Shire) Cambridge would be found in, since that’s where our pal Ian lives now). We decided it must be Cambridgeshire. That made me think of Yorkshire.
Potatoes, and Eggs
So from there, it was an easy jump to Yorkshire Pudding, the Pudding That’s Not™. And that made us think about all the different kinds of pudding. There are a lot of them. Looking through the list, we decided we wanted to have one of the savory puddings. Most of them sounded repulsive, but we had a hunch we could do OK with a potato kugel. And we were right. It was OK. Kind of bland, as the ingredients might suggest. But not bad. Seasoned salt helps a lot.
The next stop on our Puddingquest was the Bread Pudding of Joy. There are no pictures of this one folks, because, well, it just didn’t last long enough. It was wonderful. We used Challa (thus, the Jewish cuisine thing continues). Seriously, make this.
And finally, to mark the first night of Channukah, we went straight-up traditional on this one: Potato Latkes. These were amazing. Hot, crispy, squishy, tatery, yummy, and made from scratch with our own blender with nothing more than potatoes, onions, flour, seasonings, shortening, and eggs. I’ve had these in different parts of Germany (usually at outdoor vendors at markets or fairs, etc.) and we recently tried to get some from the Weihnachtsmarkt here in Regensburg. 
Those were a big disappointment, but also the inspiration for making our own. And I’m sure glad we did. We’ve got lots of the batter left over, so I’m hearing a potato pancake breakfast in my future as well. 