I recently partnered with Bosch for a feature on their website called “Not Your Mother’s Holiday Feast: Baking Bloggers Dish Up Unique Recipes for the Holidays.” When they reached out to me, I was THRILLED since the Bosch brand has a lot of meaning to me. My mom used her Bosch to make bread every single Saturday of my childhood, and she taught me how to make it as well. (Her famous recipe is posted here!) We made holiday cookies in that Bosch, birthday cakes, and yes, lots of bread. When I graduated from college, my mom’s sisters (she has 4!) bought me a Bosch (this one). I can’t think of another brand that elicits such nostalgia for me as Bosch.
So anyway, all that to say, I’m so happy and grateful that I got to partner with Bosch to share one of my favorite, unique holiday dishes! I’ve reposted the article from their website below and you can also read my full interview over on the Bosch blog!
Traditions are important, especially when it comes to the holidays. But sometimes it can be fun to try out new dishes and impress your holiday guests.
No company understands this as well as Bosch. The gifting of our mixers to the next generation (along with grandma’s secret recipes) is a time-honored tradition. Yet we also encourage innovation, especially when it comes to the kitchen.
To help you balance tradition and innovation, we have gotten in contact with four excellent bloggers who love to cook. These fantastic chefs shared with us their holiday favorite recipe and some of the treasured memories which make these recipes so special.
Kicking off our recipe collection, we are delighted to introduce Charlotte Rutledge. This amazing woman works for King Arthur Flour, testing and developing recipes. You can read about her recipe-smithing on the blog ran by King Arthur Flour.
When we talked to Charlotte about our plan, she immediately knew which delectable recipe to supply us with for this project. “A galette des rois, or the French version of king cake…Traditionally in France, the galette gets baked with a fève (dried bean) in the filling. When it’s served the whole galette is galettes of different sizes, and whoever gets the bean enjoys the honor of being king (or queen) for the day.”
Charlotte culled this fun and tasty tradition from her own childhood. “I loved the element of surprise and excitement while eating my slice just as much as I loved the combination of tender, buttery pastry and moist, rich almond cream.”
This treasured childhood memory reminded Charlotte that she wanted to continue this recipe tradition with her own daughter. She wanted her daughter to experience all the fun and excitement of eating the galette des rois as well as strengthening her young daughter’s bond to her French heritage.
If you want your upcoming holiday feast to include the galette des rois, the recipe as well as the rest of Charlotte Rutledge’s interview is here.
Blogger and author of The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, this next blogging chef mixes tradition with innovation. Jeff Hertzberg runs his blog Breadin5 jointly with Zoë François. Between his consulting work where he helps companies polish their health-improvement programs and his busy blog, we don’t don’t know how Jeff made time to give us his responses, but we are grateful he did.
Coming from a Jewish family, Jeff’s recipes come from his family’s Hanukkah traditions. It was interesting to work with him, as mainstream media focuses primarily on the Christmas holidays.
Jeff opened by talking about fried potato pancakes, aka “latkes”. He said latkes are part of the traditional Hanukkah cooking of foods using oil. “It’s all about fried things for Hanukah —commemorating the ancient Jerusalem temple lamp that miraculously stayed lit for eight nights when there was only enough oil for one. So for us, fried potato pancakes (latkes) are traditional.”
But Jeff didn’t stop with telling us about latkes. He continued to explain that in college, his wife and he enjoyed experimenting with cooking in oil. And so another tradition was born — paninis grilled in olive oil with a gooey goat cheese center.
As you can imagine, this bit of inventiveness was a hit. The delicious paninis appeared on-and-off for years as part of their Hanukkah favorite foods.
Jeff commented that his daughter is currently studying abroad and doesn’t have access to the things she needs to make a paninis. So he said, “…we may crank out some latkes, but the fried holiday food we’re making will be panini—grilled cheese sandwiches done the Italian way, on a press, in olive oil. That’s the perfect fried food for this particular Hanukkah.”
If you want your upcoming holiday feast to include some gooey and delicious paninis, the recipe as well as the rest of Jeff Hertzberg’s interview is here.
Carbs and meat are usually the main dishes you’ll find on most holiday dinner tables. So we were grateful when blogger Teri Hutcheon responded to our request for recipes. She runs A Foodie Stays Fit, a blog that focuses on healthy recipes which are regularly gluten-free.
With her reputation as a healthy chef to uphold, Teri did not disappoint. She gave us the recipe for a delicious kale salad, saying, “I like having something GREEN at the table since meals can quickly get carb heavy, but the cheese makes it still feel a bit indulgent. (I sometimes throw crispy bacon into the mix too!) It comes together really quickly which is important during the busy holiday season!”
Teri explained how she created a salad which should appeal to all tastes. “I love making a kale salad with clementines, chopped almonds and pecorino romano. The textures are amazing with the crunchy almonds, sweet clementines and chewy dried cranberries. Even my husband, who isn’t really a salad person, loves it.”
This light, summery salad recipe comes from a time when Teri was alone for Christmas. Her neighbors were also alone, as their adult children were celebrating Christmas away from their parent’s home. So when they decided to celebrate together, Teri threw this salad together.
“I made the salad since I still had all the ingredients around and they grilled steaks… It wasn’t a traditional Christmas dinner, but it’s a wonderful memory of sharing time with great people – and that’s really the best part about the holidays.”
If you want your upcoming holiday feast to include a fresh and light kale salad, the recipe as well as the rest of Teri Hutcheon’s interview is here.
Bringing the charm of country living into your home is The Red Feedsack, which is ran by Dori Troutman. She shows several facets of what rural life is like, complete with farm animal blog post. She has a large stable of recipes which she has shared, and we were excited to have her contribute to this holiday recipe project.
After we talked with Dori, she brought out a scrumptious recipe that can double as a holiday breakfast food or a quick dessert for the sideboard. Dori explained, “My favorite non-traditional recipe is a wonderful Apple Pancake cooked in the oven in a large cast iron skillet! There is something about it that says “home” and “comfort” and “family”. And I love that.”
The recipe for this delicious dish was given to Doru more than 35 years ago, as part of a bridal shower present. Dori cheerfully told us, “I still have the original recipe; written in cursive on lined notebook paper!”
Then, just three months post-wedding, Dori was able to use her new recipe. She made Thanksgiving breakfast for her entire family. While Dori explained that she wasn’t the best cook then, she was able to execute the recipe perfectly and cemented the apple pancakes place as a holiday family staple.
“This recipe holds a lot of special memories for me. Probably the ones that I love the most are making this for my children all their lives… And now that my daughter is grown and has a family of her own she serves it frequently for her little family and I love that.”
If you want your upcoming holiday feast to include this great breakfast treat, the recipe as well as the rest of Dori Troutman interview is here.
Part of the charm of the holidays are the traditions we engage in with our loved ones. One of the most binding traditions is eating food from recipes that our ancestors made. Yet, all traditions had to start somewhere.
So why not give one our four chef’s recipes a try and see if you can’t start a new tradition? By adding something new, you can honor your family traditions while welcoming new opportunities and create new memories.
Lastly, we would like to thank our contributing chefs! They were all wonderful to work with and we hope you give their recipes a try.
Thank YOU Bosch!! Truly an honor!
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