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Top Recipes of 2020 (with highlights and failures)

Dec 28, 2020 · Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, please see my privacy policy for details.

I do these posts every year, and it’s fun to see not only the top recipes (the ones that you guys loved the most) and then I share some of the highlights and failures. It’s not all success after success in the recipe development and testing world lol.

Top recipes of 2020 plus highlights and failures

TOP RECIPES OF 2020

  1. Raspberry cream cheese swirl brownies-these are so crazy good, perfect for Valentines Day
  2. Freezer butternut squash soup-I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve made this, it’s warm, comforting, delicious and great for having ready to go in the freezer
  3. 3-Ingredient banana pancakes-super easy, healthy, and the kids love them
  4. Sheet pan ground turkey balsamic meatloaf dinner– a family dinner, made all on one sheet pan
  5. Grilled sweet potatoes – never knew one could grill sweet potatoes until this summer! Game changer
  6. 5 Ingredient slow cooker turkey meatballs– they have a secret healthy ingredient and are like a meal all in one meatball
  7. Quick pickled eggs-I have these in my fridge at all times now, perfect for a high protein snack or lunch
  8. 5 Ingredient pesto chicken salad bagel sandwiches – such an easy lunch idea
  9. Remoulade sauce recipe -this sauce is just incredible, try it on burgers, as a french fry dip, on vegetables, so good!
  10. 5 Ingredient Instant Pot beer brats – I can’t believe what a fun and quick dinner this is, we have these all the time!

Top recipes of 2020

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Biggest highlight: I’d say the biggest highlight of the past year was that my small business is still in business. This is something I am truly grateful for, and of course it wouldn’t be possible without the help of the SweetPhi team, and YOU amazing beautiful readers!!
  • Learned something new: Switched from 100% natural light photography to incorporate some artificial light photography. It’s been a complete game changer (allowed me the ability to shoot, for example, a coffee recipe at 9pm <- not the smartest idea with kids who wake me up at 5). It’s also led me to be super creative and learn new skills, which is something I always love doing. Also, we’re doing more video and reached 100 subscribers to the SweetPhi YouTube channel, it’s not a lot, but it’s slowly growing!
  • Personal highlight: On a personal note, a big highlight was that we moved. During a pandemic, with small kids.
  • Something I never thought I’d do: start a sourdough starter, definitely an emotional experience, but it’s taught me to work with doughs and create some amazing recipes like sourdough pizza and sourdough scallion pancake.’
  • My favorite kitchen find: these 26oz. Weck jars – I use them

Home office and switching to artificial light photography

FAILURES/FLOPS

  • Recipe testing for a post: freezer to slow cooker or freezer to oven recipe testing pork souvlaki with Greek potatoes. It was so disgusting, the potatoes were watery and the pork was rock hard. It was in recipe testing for my freezer meals post. Just so you know how much testing goes in to recipes. This one did not make the cut. But what did make the cut was the Mediterranean pork on that post. SO good, makes great pitas.
  • Photography background fail: I shoot photos on a heavy wooden backgrounds. I was trying out some vinyl backgrounds I’d heard someone recommend because they’re light, portable and supposedly “look” like other backgrounds. Welp, they’re this weird small size with seams I had to edit out and I had to figure out how to tape them up, and I put a hot bowl of soup on one of them and the paint(?) peeled right off. Big fail for me.
  • Bitter and dense: I tried making biscuits with only whole wheat flour. They were bitter and dense, major failure.
  • Soggy and smelly: you want to know what does not freeze well? This one zucchini cheddar bread I was testing. It was absolutely gross, I wanted to vomit. It was like soggy and smelled rancid.

Recipe failures and recipe flops of 2020

  • Most fails: the most fails definitely happened in the sourdough department (this one is also in my highlights – don’t give up!!). So many random trail and errors. There were lots of discs (instead of loaves, below), burnt loaves, and weird recipes I tried making with sourdough starter discard (note- brownies and chocolate chip cookies made with sourdough discard were straight up gross lol). You can read my whole emotional experience with sourdough – there were a lot of tears.

Sourdough bread fail

I’d love to hear from you: did you make any of the “top” recipes? Did your favorites make the list? Let me know in the comments below!

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Blog Posts failures, highlights, top recipes, Top recipes of 2020 plus highlights and failures

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Sweetphi - Philia Kelnhofer - food blogger head shot image

Welcome to the SweetPhi blog, I’m Phi! I live in Milwaukee, WI. I’m a busy working mom (and cookbook author x2) to boy-girl twins and a toddler.

I am all about helping make mealtime a little easier and sharing inspiration for those with a busy lifestyle!

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I like to prep these Mexican chicken and quinoa bowls on the weekend and then have everything ready to go for a quick dinner during the week.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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I just separate everything in containers, and then when we need a quick dinner, I just put everything on the table and let everyone choose their toppings.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Storage containers and finding the right ones that work for me has been a complete game changer! 
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Not only do I use containers as mixing bowls/etc but I also use them for food storage and for photography props!
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I can’t get over how much I love my air fryer. 🤩 Do you use one?!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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I love seeing comments like this one on my 5 ingredient crock pot pork roast and potatoes!
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I absolutely love making recipes in the slow cooker because of little hands on time and are very set-it-and-forget-it type meals.
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Do you use a slow cooker?
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I forgot where I read it, but it was something abo I forgot where I read it, but it was something about 'normalizing normal/slightly ugly/normal kitchens' and that resonated with me. 
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When we moved into our house, my original thought was "I absolutely love the house, but maybe we'll redo the kitchen in 5 years to be all white" 
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Why though? Because everyone else is doing that and it's 'cool'?
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After having lived in our house for 6+ months, now the most I have dreams of doing is maybe to redo the laminate countertops that are peeling in some places. Maybe. One day.
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But this isn't some before/after post. It's just a post about saying your kitchen/home is fine the way it is, and if you don't have some pinterest board or desire to change your entire kitchen, that's a-ok.
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Don't get me wrong, I still LOVE looking at beautiful kitchens and spaces, so I'll just continue adding pretty images to my weekly love-lists and leaving it there - for looking at pretty things vs. wishing to change my house or feeling bad about my kitchen.
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Personally, I love my house. It feels homey and welcoming, and that's the vibe I'm going to keep going with.
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Weekly love list on the blog, not kitchen related, but you can read it with a cup of coffee from whatever kitchen you’re in 👉🏻 https://sweetphi.com/love-list-29/

📷 @cassierosch 
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#normalizenormal #kitchens #reallife #reallifeandstyle #home #momlife #workingmom #sweetphiblog #momblogger #allarewelcome #coffeebreak #oakkitchen #oakcabinets
Chicken and quinoa are a favorite combo of mine be Chicken and quinoa are a favorite combo of mine because I can get two servings of protein in one delicious meal; quinoa and chicken. And there’s Greek yogurt in this recipe so more protein!
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This 5 ingredient healthy slow cooker buffalo chicken and quinoa is comforting, delicious and healthy all at the same time. 
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PLUS, it’s great for meal prepping and is an easy crock pot recipe! So many wins in one recipe 🤩
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Clickable link in profile 👉🏻https://sweetphi.com/5-ingredient-healthy-slow-cooker-chicken-and-quinoa/
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