Our Hanukkah

When we did our international staycationing this summer, I told my kids about some Jewish holidays, including Hanukkah. Then Miles heard the end of this week was the beginning of Haunkkah, so we decided to have our own little Hanukkah dinner with some friends, traditional food, and games. We made a menorah from a potato. I would never have thought of this on my own. It was in a book form the library called, "Happening Hanukkah."  It did have nine lights (in case you noticed this potato is missing one), but by the time I took this picture Miles had already used the  shammash, which is the ninth candle used to light the other eight.

 The kids especially enjoyed spinning the dreidel and making candy dreidels from Hershey kisses, marshmallows and licorice.

  

For the food, we had hummus with pita chips, potato latkes, and falafel. The hummus and pita chips were store bought, and the latkes turned out fairly well....but the falafel was a disaster. Being that Hanukkah commemorates the miracle of the oil, many of the foods are cooked in oil. The latkes turned a nice golden brown on my oiled griddle. For the falafel I needed to heat a pan of oil to drop the small balls of ground chickpeas, parsley and garlic. I followed my recipe closely, and I even watched an online video about how to make falafel. But when I put the falafel in the oil all I got was a burned, smokey mess. I think we will smell like burned oil for weeks.