Not such a simple task because really, even though today is day 28 on the Whole30, I wanted to dive head first into the chocolate Chanukah gelt today. Seems that I have not yet slain my sugar dragons. Have to keep working on that.
This afternoon, we attended our family's annual Chanukah party, giving extra thanks that the party was not in our house this year.
We brought along some of the Chanukah sugar cookies we made the other day, some sugar-free peanut butter cookies for my dad, cinnamon bun muffins* and some cheese latkes. The cheese latkes were not part of dessert, but I felt empty handed coming with just those few other foods. And also, I had about a quarter of a big container of ricotta cheese left in the fridge and it was very unclear to me how much longer it would last.
Having never made cheese latkes before but at the same time wanting to use up the ricotta cheese, I went with google and a few seconds later, I had my recipe from shiksa.com, a website that I had never heard of before but will be visiting again.
I changed her recipe very slightly because I was concerned that the latkes would not be sweet enough and in my head, I was picturing something along the lines of latke cheesecake. Either way, they got great reviews, with a request for a make-again from the husband, and that's saying a lot about something dairy. Again (and even I am getting bored of saying this) but I did not taste these myself - no dairy allowed on the Whole30, but all the latkes were gone so that must be saying something good.
Here's what I did:
1 and 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
3/4 cup flour
5 tbsps sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
Mix all the ingredients very well. Cook as you would regular pancakes, starting with a hot frying pan and flipping the latkes after two minutes. Just an FYI, this latke batter does not bubble, thereby giving you an instant clue as to when to flip 'em. Just flip them after two minutes and you'll be fine. Oh, and the second side does not need that full two minutes. I guess it depends on how high your fire is, how large your latkes are and so on, but you'll get the hang of it. Just remember, the first pancake is always the sacrificial one - kind of like your first kid. You have no idea what you're doing so you just wing in, and in the end, all is still good.
These made 15 large latkes and at the end of the meal they were all gone.
*More about those soon.