I’m just basically wondering if any dopers give homemade food gifts or even buy and send food gifts?
I usually make many batches of my Grandmother’s Fudge recipe to give to coworkers and extended family (It’s the old recipe with cocoa, sugar, milk). This year I’ve also made Jezebel sauce and jarred it up for family and friends. I’m toying with the idea of sugaring/spicing some various nuts (walnut, pecan, almond), too.
Once I did that whole “brownie-or-cookie-bar-mix-layered-in-a-decorative-jar” thing.
Why do I make things like this for people? Well, most of my exchanges are for token gifts, and I’ve always through something tasty and homemade was better than another candle or a pair of Christmas socks. I never give homemade food to someone who doesn’t know me or hasn’t eaten my cooking before, though.
We do cookies in a jar. The one we usually use is for oatmeal cookies, from allrecipes.com. We set up a big assembly line with a bowlful of each ingredient, and spend 2-3 hours doing dozens of them in an afternoon. They seem to be a big hit every year We actually tested other recipes from the same site, which looked nicer in the jars but didn’t taste quite as good.
In other years, we’ve done:
Cheese balls (cream cheese, chedder cheese, bleu cheese, few other ingredients)
Spiced almonds
“Friendship Soup” (pasta, beef bouillon granules, other stuff)
We usually order smoked sockeye salmon from these people for the kids. The company is located in Cordova, Alaska and their salmon is Copper River. If you scroll down about halfway to the jars of smoked salmon, that’s about the best you’ll ever eat. I buy them the 3-jar pack and it’s usually gone the day they get it.
I like to send my friends stuff from Trader Joe’s or expensive ethnic spices (like saffron, cardamom etc.) that aren’t available where they live.
I am actually thinking of giving some people an idli “kit” this year-including the molds, idli steamer, written recipes, lentils and some pre-made mixes to practice on.
Most people seem to like my TJs gift packages. Or maybe they’re just being polite.
I’ve also given away things like homemade limoncello etc… The reception has been warm.
We always give baskets to friends at Christmas. They usually include a bottle of metheglin or melomel, home-made gingersnaps, Cumin-Cured olives, bourboned cherries and maybe home-made candy. Beats shopping by a long shot!
I prefer to give food gifts over all other kinds of gifts (except music to people I know for sure appreciate it). They always get “used”
Not crazy about homemade, though. It has to be something that people really beg for (my bread pudding and my gumbo are the stuff of legends but are not really giveable)
This year I’m mostly giving Harry & David Soup mixes from their (semi-local) outlet store. My parents are fond of local items–like herbs from the Farmer’s Market.
I make a homemade almond roca candy that I give every year, to the point that it’s expected. If I happen to flake on making it, that’s ok; my sister will. The kids will be devastated if we both flake (but I’ve spent the afternoon making two batches.)
This year I’ll see how well it ships to Iraq, where my business partner is serving.
My family is notorious for giving food gifts since we all love to cook. I’ve done jellies and jams (wild blackberry, pomegranate, apple butter, sour plum, etc.) and meads and melomels, liquers of various stripe and description (coffee, blackberry, raspberry, root beer, sour cherry.) Sometimes I make cookies or mini bread loaves or cakes, especially apple cakes with raisins and nuts–it’s not exactly fruit cake but it serves the same purpose while remaining edible. My sister is fond of making chocolates and she does a wicked English toffee with dark chocolate and toasted almonds, mmm. Some members of my family have on occasion been in the habit of giving gifts of very “special” cookies. Food gifts are the best–they’re very personal, relatively inexpensive and they don’t hang around forever. They’re just a sweet season and a nice memory without a gigantic goddamned credit card bill to answer to.
I don’t buy gifts for anyone outside of my immediate family, but I do like to give gifts so my brother and I have started making cookies.
We make oatmeal scotchies (from the back of the Toll House Butterscotch Morsels bag). It’s a nice little tradition we’ve started together since I’ve moved out of our parents’ house. I buy the ingredients, he brings the booze, we listen to Christmas music and make about 6 batches.
I give them away to my friends that I see before Christmas and to my karate instructors. Then we both have enough to keep around our houses to serve to guests.
Not a Chistmas gift, obviously, but my wife made her brother a fully-loaded spice rack as a housewarming gift when he bought an apartment with his girlfriend. She picked up the spices at a downtown market (the kind where the vendors scoop the spice from a barrel and sell it by weight), and loaded them into beautiful little glass jars. She also added a detail instruction sheet giving possible uses of every spice.
For the past several years, I’ve sent my parents half a turkey and half a ham, both smoked, an assortment of deluxe nuts, and an assortment of dried fruit. They have enough things (coffeemakers, whatever kitchen appliance has come out this year, etc.) and the food fits in their diets, and is very tasty. We live nearly 500 miles apart, so making them a lasagna just isn’t feasible.
I always make some home made goodies to send to family out-of-state and also to co-workers: Fudge, frosted Spritz, sugar cookies decorated to look like Santa Claus, and my famous (or notorious) Rum Balls.
I always love it when someone makes me a food gift - even now when I’m trying to lose weight. I am a bachelor, I rarely cook for myself and if someone spent a little time thinking of me and making me some good chocolate chip cookies, or some good fudge, it always makes me feel god.
I don’t have anything else to offer the thread, but I thought people might like to know that their food gifts are appreciated.
Gingersnaps, shortbread of various kinds, jam, lime or lemon curd. Sugar cookies. Peanut butter cookies. I made the Oreo truffles from Ginger’s candymaking thread, and they were so good that I’m going to experiment with other types of cookies, and adding booze. Yum. I gave my BIL and SIL four loaves of different homemade bread.
We actually tested other recipes from the same site, which looked nicer in the jars but didn’t taste quite as good.