Happy New Year's Eve
Dec. 31st, 2017 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseDo you have big plans for tonight?
That's the question everyone is asking today. We _sort of_ do. In our house, we traditionally stay up for (or, in years past, WAKE UP for) the ball dropping in New York City. I find this tradition very strange, even though I participate in it, because America is so vast that we're in another time zone from New York City, so even though we tune in "live," we're watching something that was recorded "live" an hour earlier. People in California and Hawaii have an even odder experience, I'd imagine, to say nothing of Puerto Rico and Guam.
In past years, we've made Shawn's brother Mark's wild rice soup for New Year's Eve dinner. We have made this particular soup because it calls for both ham and turkey, which we have in abundance in our freezer thanks to Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. But, this year, we ended up making our batch of wild rice soup for a holiday party we were invited to. We made that version vegetarian, so we COULD have chosen to have it again, but we decided to buck our own tradition this year and have steak and potato latkes.
Why latkes? Well, first of all, they're yummy. Secondly, I have this weird culinary issue with potato hash browns... as in I can NOT seem to make decently crispy ones. No, seriously, I have tried everything you're about to suggest, I SWEAR. I once spent an entire week trying out different recipes and different tricks and every time, they were OKAY and edible, but just not what I wanted from my hash browns. (What I want? Crispy on the outside, fluffy and white on the inside.) Lots of people can do this outside of professional kitchens. My mother can. She made amazing hash brown my whole life. It's something with me. So, we decided that maybe what I need to do is make something hash brown like that really wasn't hash browns at all, with the hopes that I'd basically get what I'm looking for in a sideways manner.
Wish me luck.
And, yes, you can, if you wish, inundate my comments box with your tips, advice, and recipes. I would still love to try to make the perfect hash browns, so anything you think might help me to do that is actually very welcome.
Shawn will probably go to bed early. Mason and I are planning to stay up watching the ten episodes of season three of Haikyu! or at least as many as we can get in before midnight, when we'll wake Shawn up for sparkling cider and noise makers and time-delayed "live" NYC ball dropping.
You? What's your tradition?
That's the question everyone is asking today. We _sort of_ do. In our house, we traditionally stay up for (or, in years past, WAKE UP for) the ball dropping in New York City. I find this tradition very strange, even though I participate in it, because America is so vast that we're in another time zone from New York City, so even though we tune in "live," we're watching something that was recorded "live" an hour earlier. People in California and Hawaii have an even odder experience, I'd imagine, to say nothing of Puerto Rico and Guam.
In past years, we've made Shawn's brother Mark's wild rice soup for New Year's Eve dinner. We have made this particular soup because it calls for both ham and turkey, which we have in abundance in our freezer thanks to Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. But, this year, we ended up making our batch of wild rice soup for a holiday party we were invited to. We made that version vegetarian, so we COULD have chosen to have it again, but we decided to buck our own tradition this year and have steak and potato latkes.
Why latkes? Well, first of all, they're yummy. Secondly, I have this weird culinary issue with potato hash browns... as in I can NOT seem to make decently crispy ones. No, seriously, I have tried everything you're about to suggest, I SWEAR. I once spent an entire week trying out different recipes and different tricks and every time, they were OKAY and edible, but just not what I wanted from my hash browns. (What I want? Crispy on the outside, fluffy and white on the inside.) Lots of people can do this outside of professional kitchens. My mother can. She made amazing hash brown my whole life. It's something with me. So, we decided that maybe what I need to do is make something hash brown like that really wasn't hash browns at all, with the hopes that I'd basically get what I'm looking for in a sideways manner.
Wish me luck.
And, yes, you can, if you wish, inundate my comments box with your tips, advice, and recipes. I would still love to try to make the perfect hash browns, so anything you think might help me to do that is actually very welcome.
Shawn will probably go to bed early. Mason and I are planning to stay up watching the ten episodes of season three of Haikyu! or at least as many as we can get in before midnight, when we'll wake Shawn up for sparkling cider and noise makers and time-delayed "live" NYC ball dropping.
You? What's your tradition?
no subject
Date: 2017-12-31 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-31 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-31 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-31 09:54 pm (UTC)https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-life/food-recipes/latkes-potato-pancakes
The key instructions:
1. Use yukon gold potatoes.
2. Grate them early. Rinse, then DRAIN. You want to let them dry for HOURS. If I were doing this, I seriously might set up a fan.
3. Tina will tell you to grate the onions separately because you DON'T want to drain the onions (you want the juice to stay in there.)
no subject
Date: 2018-01-01 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-01 07:31 am (UTC)Other than that, we watched a library copy of Dr. Strange. Honestly? Not impressed. Glad we didn't go out of our way to catch it in the theatres.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-01 03:51 pm (UTC)Sorry about the firework, honestly. I hate it when our neighbors do that for the 4th.