Are you headed to a holiday cookie exchange or swap this season? What cookies are you going to bring? We tried out two cookie recipes to see which one is most exchange worthy—Soft Gingerbread with Maple Glaze or Pistachio Pinecones. Which one could we not stop eating?
Charcuterie, cheese, and butter boards got nothin’ on the Halloween treat board! This month, we each chose a scary movie and constructed a treat board to go with it for a maximized Halloween experience. Required: three kinds of candy, a baked good (sweet or savory), a fruit, and a cheese. Best of all, we both won just for embracing The Spirit of Halloween. Listen to find out which movies and treats we chose.
To see photos of our treat boards, follow us on Instagram: @recipechallengepod Want to talk recipes or have suggestions for future themes? Email us: recipechallengepod@gmail.com
It’s September and time to say goodbye to summer fruits—the berries! the peaches! the cherries!—and embrace fall. This episode our challenge was apples as after-school snacks. We both looked for healthy options… with mixed results on taste. But which one comes closest to being a winner? Grab a bag of cacao nibs and listen.
We’re back and ready to talk fair food! This month we celebrate the Minnesota State Fair (second largest state fair in the U.S. behind Texas). It’s the Great Minnesota Get Together AND the Great Minnesota Eat Together. We each selected a food you can buy at the fair and found recipes to duplicate them at home. One of us went classic and one went brand new for 2024. Which treat gets the blue ribbon?
It’s full-on summer and that means more meals eaten al fresco. And while you may want to grab some takeout and head lakeside, sometimes it’s fun to make your own picnic. This episode, we went head-to-head with some delicious sandwich recipes you could make for an outdoor dining experience. Will we be putting the burrata caprese or the chicken salad in our picnic basket this summer? Savor this episode – we’re on summer break and will be back in August!
Happy birthday to YOU! Happy birthday to ME! Whenever your birthday happens to fall, you may want to celebrate with a delicious homemade cake. In honor of Rebecca’s birthday month, we each made a cake – one is a traditional yellow cake/chocolate frosting and the other is a Dairy Queen dupe ice cream cake. Which one takes the cake challenge?
This month we honored our first listener request! We each chose a honey-forward dessert, but instead of sweet treats we got dryness and gumminess. Oh my. Which is the lesser of two evils? Find out in this episode + flashback to last month’s cottage cheese episode with some cottage cheese ice cream.
Love it or despise it, cottage cheese is back, baby! In this challenge, a TikTok cottage cheese recipe goes curd-to-curd with an old school cottage cheese salad. Or is it dip? Find out which one was a more satisfying snack. And we got our first-ever request for a challenge and it’s a sweet one!
‘Tis the season for Grammys, BAFTAs, Golden Globes and Oscars. For this challenge, we exchanged recipes for cocktails to serve at your next awards show viewing party. One of us tried to bring the glitz and shimmer while the other uncovered the Official Cocktail of Summer 2024. Find out if we greenlit the Gold Rush or the Starlight just in time for the 96th Academy Awards.
For our first challenge of 2024 we exchanged recipes from celebrity cookbooks. One of us went high and the other went low. Find out whether pasta casserole from The Tucci Cookbook by Stanley Tucci (friend of the pod) (not really) or Barry’s (Greg Brady) Showstopper Zucchini and Swiss Pie from Alice’s Brady Bunch Cookbook earned a repeat cook.
Hey, it’s Sweater Weather time! Are you feeling cozy, indoorsy and maybe a bit tired? How about a starchy dish that matches the vibe? This month, we exchanged recipes that each bring out that hygge feeling: Rutabaga Casserole and Pumpkin Pecan Bread Pudding. They both filled our stomachs, but which one captured our hearts and minds?
Old business from episode 1: Watergate Salad Makes a Comeback Notes from episode 2: Scandia, Minnesota Elim Lutheran Church: A Brief History What a carved rutabaga looks like Adapted version of Pumpkin Pecan Bread Pudding by Joanne Change (original recipe calls for 8 slices of white crusty bread, this recipe uses croissants, we used challah) Pastry Love: A Baker’s Journal of Favorite Recipes by Joanne Chang Recipe for Rutabaga Casserole: 1 large rutabaga 16 soda crackers 1 egg, beaten 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup milk 1 stick of butter, melted salt and pepper, to taste Cook rutabaga until done and mash. Crush soda crackers. Mix all ingredients and put in greased 8-inch round casserole dish (or similar). Cover and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Uncover and bake 15 minutes more. Serves 6. “Even if you don’t like rutabagas, you’ll like this dish!!” Submitted by Beverly Pratt, Elim140th Anniversary Recipe Book, 1994
For our debut episode, Rebecca picked the theme “70s Dinner Party” and we both independently chose salads (mind meld!). But, oh, how very different these two salads are! One very sweet and one very savory. But in the end it all came down to texture.
