I have something special for you today. Remember my apron that I posted about? Well, I love it. And the wonderful ladies at Phasethree offered to send a beautiful pink and brown apron -totally free! - to one of my readers! Yes, that's the one in the photo!
To enter, leave a comment to this post, stating your favorite must-have holiday food (I'd love to get some inspiration!). I'll pick a winner when the week is over. You can enter until Sunday December 8, midnight Pacific time zone. And the giveaway is open to everyone, no matter where you live.
But wait! You can also get free shipping when you order your very own apron from Phasethree, during this same week. Free shipping if you're in the US, and a discounted $5 for shipping anywhere else in the world. (Mention in the comments that you're from Anne's Food.) They have lots of really cute holiday aprons in right now - they'd be perfect as christmas gifts, for a friend or (dare I suggest it?) for yourself.
Need suggestions? This one with birds? Colorful snowmen? Or a more classical holiday motive?
59 comments:
holiday must have food? Definitely chocolate! My family is not into the traditional holiday fruitcake - although i love them - so we tend to have lots of chocolate cakes and cookies. Some spiced and boozed up. The one I usually make is my no flour rum and raisin chocolate cake.
Haha, I always marvel at your pretty aprons, and now I can actually win one, yay! Aaand... my birthday is coming up (the 6th), so...
I think my alltime favorite holiday food is a nice roast, the way my grandmother makes it. I don't know what she does to it, but it's the most delicious, tender and overall amazing piece of meat I have ever had.Over the years, I've managed to make out rosemary, thyme and garlic, but she's always teasing me with her 'secret ingredient' that I just cannot seem to figure out! Oh well, as long as she keeps making it every Christmas, I'm a happy girl ^^
(oh and by the way, I live in Belgium, is that a problem, for shipping?)
Bye, and keep bloggin about your beautiful food and dito cats, I'm sure a lot of people, like me, enjoy it!
My favorite holiday food is quite simply mashed potatoes! It wouldn't be Yule without homemade mashed potatoes with lots of butter!
Oh my, what a pretty apron! Oh, well. My must have holiday food is probably swedish traditional "Janssons frestelse" (Well, Anne - try to translate that to your English speaking readers! :-) ) - a sort of pommes gratin with onions, a version of pickled herring with sandlewood and cloves, lots of cream and finally breadcrumbs on top. Its absolutely marvellous!
I love these aprons!!! I saw them on your blog a while ago and even asked for one for Christmas, but since my wish list is long this year (I asked for dozens of cookbooks and some cooking appliances ;-) ), I don't think I will actually get one...
Anyway, my favorite Christmas dish is beetroot soup with little dumplings stuffed with mushroom. Oh, and there's also "makiełki" , a dessert made of noodles, poppy seeds, honey and nuts. Delicious!!!
uuu.... good question!
I thought I'd be going for sweets, but actually:
favourite holiday food = my grandma's potato salad!!! no doubt about it!
nothing fits December and the holiday spirit and sitting inside next to a fire while it snows-better than a creamy potato and mayo salad! mmm...
so grateful for creative variations, as well! i would suggest slicing the potatoes into thin slices instead of chunks and then layering them.. with some red onions perhaps? mmm... served cold... perfect with roastings... and cakes... and wine... and laughter and everything :)
Enjoying your blog,
apron-ness - ay-ay...
p.s. wouldn't the translation be 'Janssons temptation'?
My fav must-have holiday food has to be my grandma's chex mix. i could eat it all day long! I also think french-toast casserole is a must-have for post-holiday brunch.
My must have holiday food is def. Julskinka. ;) Christmas ham with mustard. Yum! I'm actually craving it now. Haha.
For me, it would be peppered walnuts. Walnuts baked with butter and seasoning salt, and then doused with freshly ground pepper when they come out of the oven. Impossible not to eat. Yum.
Every holiday we have stuffed artichokes. They take some time to prepare so we usually only have them a few times a year. I posted a recipe on my blog if you are interested!
I make toffee every year for gifts. Everyone loves it.
My favourite Christmas holiday food is "Halländsk långkål". If I could only have one dish on the christmas table, this would be the one!
As of this year my new favorite holiday food is pumpkin fondue. It is basically a pumpkin with the seeds removed and filled with bread and cheese and baked whole. I tried with pumpkin and acorn squash and eprosnally prefferred the squash. http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2008/11/roast-pumpkin-with-cheese-fondue
Every Christmas morning, we have an almond ring from the Scandinavian bakery. It's almost as good as the ones my great-grandma used to make. It wouldn't be Christmas without one!
Very cute apron! My sister-in-law would love it. My favourite holiday food is blackberry pie, served warm with vanilla ice cream. Growing up, it was always one of the pies served with Christmas dinner. Yum!
I had to pick two holiday favorites, it's just too hard! My Grandmother (and now my Mother) bake Christmas bread every year, we eat it with dinner then toasted with butter at breakfast. Then Christmas Day we always eat Kielbasa with horseradish for breakfast (more like brunch because we sleep in) I couldnt do without these two holiday treats!
Hej Anne!
My favourite holiday food changes according to where I am. If I am strolling down a Christmas market it has to be a cup of very hot mulled wine with some ginger sweet to go with it.
I associate my favourite holiday foods with my favourite place ever, Miramar. I remember eating chips on horseback at a beach restaurant (that's chips with a fried egg on top) but the ultimate sweet treat has to be churros with chocolate filling (still warm), best eaten on the beach by the seaside.
How is one supposed to pick just one food! YIKES
One thing that just never seems to make it to the table any other day of the year is the Honey Baked Ham and from that a sandwich of ham, spicy sweet mustard, and havarti on a croissant! The epitome of holiday indulgence :)
My holdiday food is a prime rib roast although I am not sure that I will be able to afford to buy one this year as the price of beef in the U.S. has skyrocketed. I may have to get my own inspiration from these comments.
I really love anything with cranberries. Homemade cranberry sauce (especially if it has a touch of orange zest/juice in it) is delicious in a Cranberry Swirl Coffee Cake.
hmm...because i never hardly ever make the same thing more than once, there's not a must have for me. i have to do something different every year. so i'll answer for my husband...he'd say it's not christmas without his mom's christmas breakfast (a sort of egg/sausage/cheese/bread casserole that gets made the night before and baked the morning of) and cinnamon rolls. i guess that will become our tradition as well ;-)
My favorite holiday must have food is actually a "leftover" recipe: Turkey Quesadillas with cranberry salsa. Mmmmmm, I'm hungry just thinking about it! :)
No contest. My grandmother's chard and ricotta ravioli.
Well,I love fudge!Christmas is the best time of the year to eat it too!
I have a casserole that I can't live without on the christmastable anymore, it's with fenyl, black olives, carrottes, potatoes and saffron. So yummie, and an excellent vegetarian dish for any smörgåsbord.
Haystacks- butterscotch chips, melted and mixed with chow mein noodles (they look like little haystacks), they are a MUST!!! They always taste like christmas! Thank you for having this giveaway! Phase Three's aprons are the absolute BEST! Please enter me!
Favourite? Roast Kelly Bronze turkey, with roast potatoes cooked in goose fat, honey roast parsnips, brussels with pancetta, mashed carrot and swede, mashed potatoes, peas, roasted sweet potato, spiced red cabbage cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy and BREAD SAUCE..... I must have bread sauce, lathered liberally on top of the meat, with a delicious dollop of cranberry, then a smothering of gravy....................... (then a long nap)!!!!
My mom's deviled eggs are my must-have holiday food. Yum, yum! Sugary79@aol.com
Must-have for me is rosemary shortbread. It just speaks Christmas comfort to me.
Cranberry sauce and cookies
My must have is cookies - probably the top favorites are Finnish Brown Butter Jam cookies, ginersnaps, marasche and almond/pine nut macaroons. I make an enormous assortment, though.
This is SO cute! Must have holiday food? Well, snack-wise a must have is trash (chex mix with nuts, etc) and white chocolate covered peanut butter ritz bits. Real food wise...squash casserole!
My holiday must have food is definitely potato klub! I love it fresh with lots of butter on Christmas Eve and then fried with lots of butter for breakfast on Christmas Day morning. I've been eating this for as long as I can remember for Christmas, even when I was just a little kid who couldn't stand it and didn't understand why the adults liked it so much. It also wouldn't be a holiday without krumkake for a treat. I finally got an electric iron to make those, as my stove top iron was retired.
I love classic "stuffing" - bread, celery, onions, cranberries, and Simon & Garfunkel. I always sing "Parsely, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme" when shopping for stuffing herbs.
No Christmas would be complete for me without a nice big bowl of tomtegröt. A little cinnamon and a little milk to accompany. Talk about comfort food!
Mimosas! Seriously, I know it might sound odd, but mimosas are what I look forward to on Christmas morning with my family, along with the cinnamon rolls.
My holiday must have food is Finnish salad rosolli, that is made of cooked potatoes and carrots, beetroots, apple, onion, gherkins.
Best wishes
Merja
My favorite holiday "food" is all the deserts. Little chocolate truffles, jam thumbprints, peanut butter cookies, lace cookies, little citrus shortbreads. I love setting it all out and just looking at it almost as much as I love tasting all the little treats.
Mostly I love spending time with my son making it in the weeks before. :)
I have to say that my holiday-must-have-food is "bruna bönor" (I don´t even know if I want to translate taht, I mean does brown beans sounds even slightly as delicious as it really is??) that my stepmum used to make. (She is btw an older You, she even reads cookbooks in bed rather than novels). She makes "bruna bönor" herself and what makes it so special is that she adds just a bit of cinnamon. Maybe "bruna bönor" isn´t really a holiday type of food but she always makes it for christmas and I always eat tooooo much. She and my father lives in the Netherland at the time so I guess I have to make the beans myself this year, but it will not be the same. The apron wolud without a doubt go straight to the netherlands and to my stepmum and who knows, maybe I´ll get some "bruna bönor" under the christmastree this year...
My must have holiday food has to be lefse. My dad makes it every year around the holidays, it's so yummy!
My favorite must-have holiday food is a punch my mother-in-law makes every year for her big shindig. I have no idea what's in it, but it involves cherry juice. I love anything cherry, and the color is as wonderful as the flavor.
fish soup is a must for HUngarian christmas. Very simple yet very satisfying :)
I don't think I've ever entered a contest of any sort but the lure of a beautiful apron is just too much to resist!
My favourite holiday food is the Stollen we bake each year for our Christmas morning breakfast. I can't imagine the season without it.
http://www.eattheblog.blogspot.com
Hej Anne,
what a nice gesture and what a beautiful apron. During holidays I always spend more time at cooking and long before the start of my days off I"m already dreaming of alle the nice recipes I want to try out.
This Christmas we'll take the food to my husbands' parents because the're not capable any more to come to us.
Despite the long drive we'll take a stew with us. It's a recipe of Nigella and exists of beef, ansjovis, thyme, marsala bouillon and vegetables. By putting the pan in the oven ( 2,5 hrs.) at a low temperature (140 dgr. C) the meat becomes very tender and the juices a nice thickened sauce. The ideal technique for making a stew when you cook electric. The stew is complete with fresh mashed potatoes and a raita of horserdish, creme fraiche, mustard and chives.
With sthis stew I think I'll serve a desert as a syllabub.
Hi Anne..
that is a very sweet gesture..
My favorite holiday food is the christmas cake and all the goodies my mom makes...back in school, i used to wait for christmas vacation to prepare these goodies with her..
-J
I moved to Sweden 3 years ago and discovered the Swedish Christmas rice porridge (risgrynsgröt). And every Christmas season since then I have it as breakfast from December 1 to Christmas. I heard from someone that Swedes actually have it more as dessert, but for me, having grown up in a country that grows a lot of rice and where we eat rice like, 3 times a day, this pimped-up rice porridge (I have with with cinnamon and syrup) doesn't just bring back childhood memories but also provides a "Swedish taste" to my holiday celebrations. Rice porridge is simple and yet so heartwarming - it's what Christmas is all about!
My favourite holiday food would have to be sweetened chestnut puree spread on slightly warmed brioche - its just divine
Hi Anne, I've watched your blog for many weeks now, and love your food and your attitude. At christmas I love fruit mince, lovely and spicy and warm with macerated alcohol. We never seem to have it any other time of year, so I like to make fruit mince pies. I always get a giggle when my relatives from england call and tell me they are heating theirs in the over, it's too hot to do that over here, I've only eaten them cold! This year I'm having a go at making my first steamed pudding, rich and dark, the fruit has been stewing in brandy for over a month! And no mince pies with the left overs this time, I'm going to try making fruit mince baklava.
Keep up the lovely blog, and I'd love to see some more of those aprons. Maybe it can be for my birthday on the 21st Dec....here's hopeing :)
Monique:
monk_od@hotmail.com
Hah! You reminded me to post my recipe for Vanillekipferln (vanilla crescents), THE Austrian Christmas cookie and food that instantly puts me in a holiday mood.
While many foods are important in my family, the one that is a must is my grandmother's sugar cookies. They are a family tradition and not unusual in ingredients--flour, butter, salt, sugar, and vanilla. But the technique is demanding and makes all the difference. The dough must be made ahead and then rolled super thin--about a 16th of an inch or 2 mm thick. They are cut into shapes--stars are traditional, sprinkled with colored sugar and then bake. They must be watched closely so they don't burn and handled carefully when cooling and packing as they are fragile. But the thinness of the dough means they shatter delightfully when eaten. They are a pain to make--and kind of scary the first few times, but they are Xmas to me--especially now that my grandmother is gone.
We always have deviled eggs no matter the main dish--now my daughter Audrey makes them. And it wouldn't be festive without mint brownies and/or Rice Krispie treats made by my daughter Erica--she has her own version that is scruptious. Thanks for asking!
Your apron is fabulous. I have to say that i love your blog and I'm always very inspired by your Photos...
My favourite Holiday food..... hum.... i'm Italian so i Must say that is Panettone, even if is not so simple to make.... but I love the uone made with orange peels and chocolate drops and covered with sugar and almond glaze....... yummy....... You feel guilty when you eat a piece of that because is so rich, but is always worthy.......
why not eat it with a nice glass of moscato wine or Vino Santo....
Hope it can be of Inspiration...
Valeria
My favourite holiday food is potato latkes. And btw, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the cat blogging! They are soooo cute!
The only thing I know for sure I´ll have on chistmas eve is Tistelvinds naturligt syrade rödkål (fermented red cabbage). It´s very nice in a salad for example.
I really want the apron, but maybe you don´t like sauerkraut???
My favourite holiday food is bbq sausage in a slice of white bread (or bun) with tomatoe sauce. It is always on the menu at any aussie bbq and a hit with all ages. You can smell them cooking in the neighbourhood during the weekends at summertime mmmm
What a beautiful apron! I love to bake, so this would be perfect for me. This time of year, you can find me making Mince Pies - there's not really a recipe, you just make a pastry crust, cut into individual tarts, and fill with jarred mincemeat.
Thank you for the wonderful giveaway!
-Beeb
supercoupongirl AT gmail.com
What a lovely apron--such beautiful color/design combination, too. The shop is very elegant.
Must-have holiday food? I've been thinking on this as it's something I've not had in many, many years. My mother made a lovely cookie-almost-pastry only at Christmas when I was a little girl. The recipe required 12 egg yolks, some sort of brandy or whiskey, & lots of butter. Precisely because of that, it was a Christmas recipe only. She made them, put them in tins & had to hide them from her four daughters & anyone else aware of these pantry treasures. We offered some to visitors & the rest we took to a needy children's organization's Christmas party (she volunteered there every week). I remember one little girl (my age at the time) was hesitant about taking some fruit--she'd never had an apple or an orange before. I felt so ashamed...of myself? Not precisely, but of all of us (I live in America). How could someone who lived no more than probably 10 miles from our house not know the taste of an apple? How could we allow it? I have never forgotten it. Anyway, we took the cookies every year & they were a big hit, of course.
These cookies had a subtle-not-too-sweet filling; I remember a tin of nut spread & one of cherry--both from Europe which would have been really special in the States in those days. That's why I think the recipe is from a long-ago neighbor friend from Central Europe. This was a rich dough (see above), rolled out thinly, spread with one of the fillings (smallish amount), rolled & then shaped slightly crescent-like. Then a fine sprinkle of sugar & baked.
Two or three days ago, I caught sight of some tinned nut & fruit spreads at the market. It brought back the memory of those cookies. Not sure that's what it was but the label looked so familiar & old-fashioned in a nice way.
As you can probably tell, the recipe, the baker, & the neighbor are no longer available. Thank you, though, for bringing this up...I'm going to find the recipe. As for making them this year, that's out of reach. A dozen eggs is beyond most people's means. Perhaps by next year's holidays. Chocolate, ginger, & pumpkin flavors are must-haves. (Saffron buns will be had, thank goodness, at the new Swedish House in Washington, DC. Very much looking forward to it!)
I look forward to your blog & your friend's A Cat in the Kitchen. My cat Julie is a blogger, with my help (dial-up & no camera!)to help with humanitarian crisis work. But we intersperse it with cute, pretty, fun photographs with the permission of photographers, other bloggers, & so on. Thank you so much for the inspired relief. You also have such nice readers...very enjoyable.
ciao-meow & happy holidays to everyone!
Susan
really love that apron! looks gorgeous! must check this website!
favorite holiday food?
to be honest: Momma's christmas cookies. the ones you only get to eat during this time of the year!
Thanks for the giveaway. My favorite holiday food is this salad/dessert that my Mom makes with the following layers: strawberry jello and strawberries; cream cheese and sugar; crushed pretzels. Yum!
kellifrobinson2 AT gmail DOT com
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