Dinner with Pete & Julian, staring Latkes of Doom

Old-Fashioned Latkes

Kitsune has begged me to make him Latkes for years. I made them once, long ago, and he fell in love. I, however, realized how much I despise the work that it takes to pull them together. In all fairness, it is a simple recipe, with basic construction. Actually doing it though...just seems to take forever, and is so tiring. Not to mention messy.

The aftermath...

I did promise to make them at Christmas for him...and then used the potatoes and onions for other things. So, biting the bullet and making good on my word, we planned a latke dinner with Pete and Julian. Kitsune found a Honey Cake that he asked me to make for dessert, and was trying to figure out what protein I should make to go with the latkes. I nixed most of his suggestions due to how long they would take, finally agreeing to make the pork meatballs with mushroom cream sauce again. Pete brought a lovely oxtail soup to go along. 

They arrived at 7:30pm, the cake was in the oven, the meatballs just starting to cook. It was all a blur after that. Time slipped away and it was after 9pm before we finally sat down to eat. Thankfully everything turned out quite well, although I over salted the meatballs this time. They did pair well with the blander latkes so that was fortuitous. The cake stuck like super glue to the bundt pan which was a shame. Pete was able to shake half of it out, and I dug the rest out with a spoon. Using the warmed honey glaze as glue, I stuck the bits back together. Although it was not pretty, it was surprisingly tasty. I struggled with the recipe a bit, so I was anxious about how it would turn out. 

The remains of the Honey Cake

Honey Cake

All in all it was a lovely evening, if not somewhat tiring. The food turned out well, the company wonderful as always. I chalk it up as mostly a success. 

Really not looking forward to trying to scrub down my kitchen though...