Key to the Good Life: Homemade for the Holidays
If you’ve ever built a gingerbread house with a child or prepared a holiday feast for family, you know that food is embued with emotion. Here, five Valley women share treasured holiday recipes that any home cook can make, with love.
Erin Goodnow
Creamy Mexican Chicken Casserole
Erin Goodnow is the owner of Going Ivy, an admissions consulting, tutoring and test prep business. She grew up in Phoenix and loves raising her family here — she and her husband, James, are high school sweethearts and have two busy kids. Work, school, sports and the arts don’t leave a lot of breaks, so taking time for traditions is important.
“This is the perfect make-ahead dinner for Christmas Eve,” Erin said. “My mom would make this before we’d head out to mass, then we’d all eat chips, salsa and guacamole as the casserole went into the oven when we got home.”
After dinner, the family enjoyed a festivity Erin’s parents adopted when they moved to Phoenix from the Midwest in the 1980s. “We’d always do a piñata before going to bed,” she said. “It’s something I looked forward to every year, so I’ve carried it into our family’s holiday traditions.”
Lauren Robson moved to the Valley 37 years ago, when her father was playing Major League Baseball. Today, she lives in Phoenix with her husband, Michael, and their three children.
After 15 years in the bio-nutraceutical industry, Lauren founded Lauro Sparkling Cactus Water to keep her family healthy and hydrated. In her downtime, she loves to garden and cook with her kids — they love being able to pick veggies for dinner.
Some of Lauren’s fondest memories were spent in the kitchen with family, rolling out cookies and putting mounds of icing on them. It’s in this spirit that she shares her favorite recipe.
“Make sure you roll them thick and take them out of the oven right as the edge begins to brown,” she said. “You will not be disappointed with this perfectly soft and chewy sugar cookie.”
Lauren Robson
Christmas Sugar Cut-Out Cookies
Lauren Robson moved to the Valley 37 years ago, when her father was playing Major League Baseball. Today, she lives in Phoenix with her husband, Michael, and their three children.
After 15 years in the bio-nutraceutical industry, Lauren founded Lauro Sparkling Cactus Water to keep her family healthy and hydrated. In her downtime, she loves to garden and cook with her kids — they love being able to pick veggies for dinner.
Some of Lauren’s fondest memories were spent in the kitchen with family, rolling out cookies and putting mounds of icing on them. It’s in this spirit that she shares her favorite recipe.
“Make sure you roll them thick and take them out of the oven right as the edge begins to brown,” she said. “You will not be disappointed with this perfectly soft and chewy sugar cookie.”
Laina Freedberg
Laina, her husband Doug and their three children run in different directions during the school year, so time together during the holidays is precious. They enjoy traveling to new places, but Laina, who was raised in the South, prefers nothing more than a big holiday feast at home.
Laina loves traditional style and collecting vintage items — especially cake plates. “Traditions are important to me because they help build the memories we have together as a family,” she said. “It’s so fun when the kids look forward to something we do once a year. The anticipation of what’s to come is half the fun!”
Sunny Dunlavey
Holiday Savory Breakfast Casserole
Sunny married her college sweetheart and moved to Phoenix from Florida 14 years ago. The director of a prenatal and oncology genetics/genomic testing company stays active hiking with her husband, daughter and two pups.
As a first-generation Korean American, Sunny wasn’t raised with standard Western holiday traditions, like gift-giving or driving to see Christmas lights. But many of her family traditions focused on food. For example, every New Year’s Day, her mother would make tteokguk, a rice cake soup that represents new beginnings and luck in the coming year.
Thanksgiving is Sunny’s favorite holiday because that was the one day her mom would make a traditional turkey dinner with all the sides.
Speaking of, Chuseok, which is Korean Thanksgiving, is one of the most celebrated holidays in Korean culture, a tradition Sunny loves. It has become important to her to create new traditions while maintaining the traditions she holds close.
Kelley Morrison
Kelley and her husband, Chris, are both Arizona natives. Three years ago, Chris founded RETSY, a high-end residential real estate brokerage, and both he and Kelley are extremely involved in the Valley’s real estate market. When Kelley isn’t running their two kids to activities and to design meetings for her clients, she is running marathons — 10 and counting, so far.
Holiday traditions are important to Kelley. “Growing up, Chris’s dad
made crepes every holiday, so Chris continues this time-honored tradition and makes them for us every Christmas morning,” she said.
Thanks to their daughter’s new hobby, Kelley thinks the tradition will continue. “Avery started to develop a love for baking. She and Chris now make them together,” Kelley said.
and her husband, Chris, are both Arizona natives. Three years ago, Chris founded RETSY, a high-end residential real estate brokerage, and both he and Kelley are extremely involved in the Valley’s real estate market. When Kelley isn’t running their two kids to activities and to design meetings for her clients, she is running marathons — 10 and counting, so far.
Holiday traditions are important to Kelley. “Growing up, Chris’s dad made crepes every holiday, so Chris continues this time-honored tradition and makes them for us every Christmas morning,” she said.
Thanks to their daughter’s new hobby, Kelley thinks the tradition will continue. “Avery started to develop a love for baking. She and Chris now make them together,” Kelley said.
For these treasured recipes and more, visit frontdoorsmedia.com/holidays.
