Happy New Year!

Ever since I can remember New Year's Eve meant Portzelky-(raisin fritters.)How we looked forward, as children, to those tasty deep-fried morsels, a grand finale to the festive Christmas season. (It's hard to imagine in our society of indulgence, a time when snacks were rare and measured. In a large family such as ours, it just had to be that way in order to keep the household running efficiently. Of course none of the popular snacks of today had even been dreamed of back then. In our family a snack meant a hearty chunk of home-made bread with peanut butter and honey and this only after school. -There actually was a time when our favourite snack was bread with catsup! - But with all the many options that we have at our finger tips our kids still all love those Portzelky!)

Portzelky
Mix together:
2 cups warm milk
1 cup warm water
1/3 cup melted butter
6 eggs - beaten
2 teaspoons salt

Add:
4+ cups flour to which
4 teaspoons of yeast has been added

Blend and beat with wire whip until fairly thick (this is the tricky part for me every year - since I only make them this one time of the year, I guess at how 'soft or hard' to get the dough -softer than harder is better but if too soft you get greasier fritters. Add more flour as needed.

Now add lots of washed raisins - at least 4 cups. More raisins gets them cooked faster.

Cover the mixture and let rise in a warm place, about 1 hour.
Heat lots of oil in a fryer or electric pan to about 350o. Drop batter carefully by large wooden spoonsful into hot fat. Don't crowd. Cook until golden brown and then gently turn to brown underside. Each batch requires only about five minutes frying time. Lift with tongs into large tray lined with paper towelling. Yummy! We always ate ours without sugar since the raisins are so sweet, and I still do, but many like to dunk the fritters into sugar.

Lentil Soup

Unlike the tradition of the fritters, lentil soup is something I often make but never for a New Year's Eve dinner. We found it to be a wonderful combo with the fritters and one I'll try again. I wasn't that pleased with the photo since I quickly took it before sitting down for our meal with Olga and Linda our special guests.

The 'croutons' on top of the soup are actually nacho chips. A year ago while vacationing in Mexico at Nerdfiesta, we were served a delicious soup called 'Tortilla Soup' on New year's Eve as an appetizer in San Miguel de Allende. It was a vegetable type soup with lots of tortilla strips on top. Now we often add crunchy chips to our soups as a topper. I'll try to post the recipe another time. This is getting too long and the New Year beckons!

One comment about the dishes we used at our dinner. They are made in Mexico and ones which we've brought back with us at various times. I love the vibrant colours and life they portray. We were remembering Mexico and part of our family, Andrew, Dana, Eva and Micah, who make their home there.

I first began entertaining the idea of blogging two years ago. With that in mind I had this photo of Portzelky on file thinking I would like to blog about that some time. So this picture shows the fritters that I made two years ago and which were consumed with great gusto at an extended family gathering that New Year's Day.