Food gifts! (archive)

[ad_ho]

Ok, so what food gift are you guys making for people this year? Post recipes! I remember sponge toffee was a hit lasy year. Chocolate covered pretzels are a good idea.
I plan to make some people 'Limoncello' from that Everyday Italian show.
_________________
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

[modforpretend]

I love the Limoncello idea!!

Sadly, I never cook/make food items for Christmas because I always end up flying across the country to see my family. I'm not a baker and other things I can think of always require refridgeration. That and I'm paranoid that a bottle of infused oil/flavored vodka/etc will break in my luggage. Yuck.
_________________
Stopped prior to getting enough, despite urging to the contrary by Michael Jackson.

[PS]

I'm a huge fan of pecan brittle. So easy and WAY better than peanut brittle.

Another fun thing is biscotti, half dipped in chocolate and then sprinkled with crushed peppermint. Wrap two in cellophane and give as a gift with a nice mug and some of those chocolate spoons. Which, by the way, are so easy to make, just dip a fancy plastic spoon in melted chocolate and let dry on waxed or parchment paper.

to keep the chocolate smooth and shiny, melt in some paraffin wax used for canning.

fudge

popcorn balls
_________________
Shop Tangle online!
http://www.pretendingsanity.com

[nap]

I've only done this for the past 3 years but here's what I've made.
Fudge
Peppermint Bark - Milk Chocolate, White Chocolate, Peppermint and Candy Canes
Biscotti - from scratch

I was thinking about doing toffee this year but I’m not sure.

[ad_ho]

Yea, toffee kind of scares me, but I want to make it. Any words of wisdom?

I picked up "Food Gifts for Friends" at the library, so let's see if I can come up with anything!

Vikarious- if you see this, what all did you include in your Italian basket last year?

PS- has Jim not rated the Pecan Brittle, or is 0 even worse than okra which is at level 1?
_________________
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

[Jzane]

We've gotten gifts of either cookie batter, hot chocolate mix, Russian tea mix, etc. in jars. Just double/triple a recipe, depending on how many you need (keeping in mind that you don't need to give each person an entire batch of cookies/tea, maybe enough for 12-24 cookies and 10-12 cups of tea). Mix it all up in a large bowl, then dole it out into jars.

With the cookies, you can either give the dry ingredients and include the rest of the recipe, for adding eggs & oil. That would be better if it has to be mailed or if you're making it way ahead of time. Or you can get the dough all ready, roll it up and package it, and deliver it that way. That might be good for people with kids or couples, because baking the cookies would give them quality time together. Or for an elderly person or with little to no spare time, go ahead and bake them up.
_________________
Don't forget to be awesome.
SwagBucks

[pinkbouncyball]

I am making pumpkin bread, banana bread, and chocolate zuchini bread. I am also making peppermint fudge, a cookie assortment, key lime mini tarts, russian tea cakes, cheese balls, truffles, and spiced apple jelly.
Last year I tried to make pralines and failed miserably they never left the gelatanous goo phase I was humiliated. Still I can't resist the temptation to conquer them once and for all.

[vagabunda]

i like making biscotti but haven't found the perfect recipe yet. might have had something to do with my crappy oven last year though!

i don't usually give food away per se, but i do host a potluck holiday party and i usually make dolmas (stuffed grape leaves).

[blissed]

mini-breads (pumpkin, cranberry, something else), peppermint bark, almond cardamom balls, cranberry chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cherry swirled fudge, amaretto balls, eggnog fruit dip, maybe biscotti.

The women in my family all bake different kinds of cookies, then we express-mail them to each other. So we each have platter of cookies for neighbors, friends, etc. with about 24 varieties of cookies. It's insane, but yummy.
_________________
All I ate was spearmint candy
Trying to change the flavor of the days
...But oh this time the sugar was dazzling

[silverfish2007]

[Teahugger]

I'm maybe making some fudge this year. Like modforpretend I travel quite far for Christmas (4 hrs by bus + 2.5 hrs by car) so I can't really make anything that requires refrigeration. I might make some dog biscuits for the dogs in the extended family, we'll see.

Last year I made Bailey's truffles. They were delicious.

[melmelon]

I'm sure its no big surprise to see me on this thread pimping my damned link to last year's craptathalong.... http://www.supernaturale.com/glitter/viewtopic.php?t=8095

psssssst....vagabunda there's a kickass biscotti recipe on it....in case you were interested...

so I will likely look for some new dry mixes to send and I've been on the jam making kick....so its shaping up to be the Year of the Jam Basket....this includes the chili sauce I am intending to make and possibly some red pepper jelly with tequila (found a link somewhere and I think its just the way to get rid of the eight year old bottle of tequila that only gets drank when I'm out of everything else and already wasted...heh heh) and I'm contemplating doing dilled green beans...because they look so pretty in the jars.
_________________
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, one finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
—John Muir

[ad_ho]

melmelon- I am looking very foward to measuring out an assload of chocolate for the biscotti! Thanks for the link
_________________
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

[WorkAndPlay]

I'm making a cookbook with my most popular dinner party recipes for a friend's birthday. I was thinking to do something similar for Christmas presents, but maybe themed. I want to do a theme of twelve (one for each month), so maybe Twelve Brunches for people in love, and Twelve Budget Dinner Parties for students, and Twelve Dutch Dinners for my expat friends. Or something like that. I'm thinking to include little spice packs, because I live in a city where I can get a lot of stuff that's not so easily obtained in other parts of the country. So, like, an envelope of saffron stapled to the paella recipe, and a ziploc baggy of ras-el-hanout stapled to the tajine recipe.
_________________
The plural of anecdote is not data.

Check out what I'm cooking at Chomp!

[knits]