Libertyville native is new Bob Evans Farms' spokesperson

Want to roast hot dogs over a fire without also roasting your hand? Food writer and culinary expert Kristina Vänni of Libertyville suggests skewering an aluminum pie plate behind the hot dog to act as a protective shield from open flames.

Her 60-second video demonstrating this hack over her backyard fire pit won her $35,000 and a national contest to be spokesperson for Bob Evans, maker of ready-made food such as macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes sold in groceries across the U.S.

Vänni, a longtime food content creator and host, will share her kitchen and meal tips on Bob Evans’ social media channels and other outlets through the end of the year, the Ohio-based food company announced last week.

She takes over from the food maker’s previous spokesperson, TV host and actor Alfonso Ribeiro of the 1990s show “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and co-host of "Dancing with the Stars." Ribeiro had partnered with Bob Evans since 2018.

In April, the company announced a contest seeking its next spokesperson and 60-second videos from contestants showcasing their “best kitchen hacks for busy households.”

When Vänni heard about the contest, she thought it seemed “too fun not to try.”

As a pregnant mother of a two-year-old, Vänni has plenty of “creative recipes and fun ways to utilize all these great products for busy families,” she said. “Things get pretty crazy here,” she said of juggling work and family life.

Bob Evans’ ready-made meals appeal to her because you “get freshness of products without having to do a lot of prep work. Maybe you don’t have to peel all the potatoes. It cuts down on the busy work of cooking.”

A food family

“I’ve been cooking my whole life,” said Vänni, who was a finalist in a Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest when she was 12. Her mother and grandmother are also longtime food and recipe competition participants.

As a child, family vacations were spent with her mother who jetted to food contests, from Disneyworld to Sun Valley. Vänni remembered thinking, “This is the best — all you have to do is cook something creative and you get to do cool stuff.”

Vänni grew up in north suburban Libertyville, about an hour from Chicago. After studying theater at Northwestern University, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in TV and film. But she fell back into cooking when the internet emerged in the early 2000s and websites needed recipes and food writing. Then social media came along and demand exploded for food videos, photos and more content.

Vänni eventually moved to New York City but returned to Libertyville at the end of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I lived in two huge cities but didn’t feel like they were a home to build a family in,” she said. Moving back to her hometown gave “the kind of life I wanted to offer my kids.”

Vänni’s approach to cooking changed when her daughter was born.

“I formulated everything around whether she was occupied or napping,” she said. For example, with smaller chunks of time, Vänni might chop vegetables for 15 minutes.

For busy families, she suggests making meals in aluminum pans that can be frozen and reheated later. Quiche is one of Vänni’s favorite freezer meals.

Pie crusts can be ready-made, then filled with liquid eggs and leftover vegetables or meat, frozen, then re-reheated for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

“There are always those days when things go kaput,” said Vänni’s. Freezer meals “make dinner go so easy on those days.”

Some mealtime and kitchen hacks from of Kristina Vänni:

● When making a bowl of punch for a party, the last thing you want is to serve a watered-down beverage for your guests. Larger ice cubes won’t melt as quickly as smaller ones, so make your own giant ice cubes by freezing water in a jumbo muffin tin or even a Bundt pan for a decorative ice ring.

● Before grating cheese, wipe the grater with a little bit of cooking oil. This will not only keep the shreds from sticking to the grater, but it will also be much easier to clean when you are done.

● When making apple pie, try substituting ice-cold apple cider for the water in the pie crust. This infuses extra apple flavor into every bite.