Christmas On A Budget: FOOD!

Today’s topic is one of my favorites. I think giving (and recieving!) food is one of the best gifts out there! It’s not too expensive, it’s practical, and pretty much everybody loves a sweet treat. I make my friends and family a gift basket of homemade foods every year!

I happen to love to bake, but I can understand the intimidation of baking. However, I fully believe that if you can read, you can bake. Obviously, some recipes are easier than others, but for the most part following a recipe is super easy! Just take your time, and make sure you read each step. If you’re a really newbie baker, I recommend reading through the whole recipe at least twice before starting so it’s a bit familiar. And don’t forget to double check that you have ALL the ingredients! There is nothing more frustrating than getting halfway through a recipe and realizing you’re missing a key ingredient….not that I’ve done that or anything. *Cough*

Below are some of my favorite baking recipes to give as gifts! These are all links to my personal recipes, a lot of which are old blog posts! Therefore, please ignore all the funky footer stuff going on at the end of some of them, and the poor food photography (with lack of watermarks). 😉

1. Banana Bread. I think this tops my list of gift-giving food. It is a staple of my yearly gift basket.

2. Peanut Butter Buckeyes. A simple, quick, and delicious treat!

3. Molasses Cookies. A bit time intensive, but they are my all time favorite cookie!

4. Zucchini Bread. Less sweet than the above banana, this bread is a savory classic.

5. Pumpkin Spice Cookies. More of a fall treat, but so delicious!

6. Peanut Butter Blossoms. This is my classic Christmas cookie. My mum made them every year growing up, and it doesn’t feel like the holidays without them!

7. Lemon Bar Brownies. This recipe has a bit more to it than the others, but is still pretty easy! And absolutely delicious – I get raves about these.

8. Chocolate Pie. This is one of the richest chocolate mousse pies I’ve ever had, and it’s so simple to make.

Now that you’ve whipped up some yummy goods, lets talk presentation. Packaging up your lovingly homemade goods into a gift basket just adds a punch of holiday cheer! My biggest money saving tip for this? The dollar store. I go there every year to stock up on my food ‘gift wrap’. As I prefer a rustic Christmas look, I always start with a basket but really, pick any container that suits your fancy. I wrap my breads in plastic wrap, place cookies or other treats in cute boxes (or baggies), then add some ribbon or bows around the basket and call it a day! Cheap, easy, and pretty to boot.

Crunched for time, or truly doubting your baking ability? No problem! Make Food In A Jar! To me, this is one the best gifting concepts of all time. I love to give soup jars! Here are some of my faves from around the internet, and they make great last-minute gifts too.

(Click the pic to take you straight to the how-to!)

Cul-de-sac Cool shares five different cookie-in-a-jar recipes, with the free printable label tags to go with!

Our Bower shares this yummy looking Multigrain Chicken Soup in a jar.

The Frugal Girls shares a yummy looking Hot Chocolate in a jar! Be sure to check their French Vanilla Hot Chocolate too! (My hubs may be getting this in his stocking!)

Sassy & Sweet shares this Spice Tea in a jar.

Hope you found a new gift to give someone today. Next week for Christmas On A Budget: From Kids, and For Kids!

The New Year Beckons

What a fun holiday season! As you can see, I’m a bit behind on my holiday baking post. But better late than never yes?! I can’t believe I’m sitting on the doorstep of 2014. Part of me is really ready for the new year with new goals and new projects, but part of me is like WAIT! SLOW DOWN!! If the new year is here that means I actually have to start DOING those goals and projects. And I don’t quite feel ready. But I’ll get there.

Now, without further ado, here are the recipes (and photos) of my holiday baking gifts.

First up, Peanut Butter Blossoms. I whipped up a (huge) batch of these for friends and a couple events we went to in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I only ever have these at Christmas time, so even though they could be an any-time cookie, I always think of them as a holiday cookie!

Get the recipe here!

This peanut butter cookie recipe spreads out quite a bit, so don’t smush your rolled dough balls too much with a fork. I love this recipe however as it makes wonderfully soft chewy cookies (my favorite!).

Next I made two batches of Peanut Butter Buckeyes. Apparently I was in a chocolate peanut butter mood for my treats this year!

Get the recipe here!

These are a little messy when it comes to the chocolate dipping part (either that or it’s just ME who is a little lot messy) but they are so tasty. I have a lot of little candy boxes left over from doing the farmers market years ago and these tucked perfectly in there to give as gifts.

Every year I make a Chocolate Mousse Pie for my best friends mother. She adores it. I also made one for Thanksgiving this year and it was a hit.

Get the recipe here!

I love this pie. It is the most decadent, rich, smooth, chocolatey thing I eat all year. Just heavenly.

I tried out a new bread recipe and whipped up some Honey Spice Bread to go with the Apple Butter I canned earlier this year. This was the only recipe I tried this year that wasn’t my own!

Get the recipe here.

If I’m being 100% honest, I wasn’t over the moon for this bread recipe. I found it REALLY dry. It had great flavor, but the texture was too dry and crumbly for my taste. But with some apple butter and a cup of tea it was just perfect!

And lastly, I whipped up two batches of the Lemon Bar Brownies (from my previous baking post). One batch for my mum, and one for my mother in law.

Get the recipe here.

Compared to last year, this was a relatively small holiday baking session for me. But I loved it. It was so nice not to feel swamped with baking and be able to enjoy each treat I made for people. See you in 2014!

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Photo Dump of the Week

My blogging schedule got a little off because last week, I ended up having my bottom wisdom teeth taken out. It progressed from a little paint to needing them out in just a few days, so it ended up throwing my week off! So today’s post is just some photos of things we’ve done recently that I wanted to share, but didn’t need to dedicate a whole post to. The above image is my fall centerpiece for our kitchen table. I don’t usually do centerpieces, but I felt like making one this year!

 
New Hampshire is gorgeous in the fall. I love living here!

My little girl has been really into shape lunches.

Grampa teaching my little miss to rake.

We found some really happy bread waiting for us in the bread bag!

Until next time,

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Zucchini Bread

She was so excited about making bread with the big zucchini!

This past weekend Grandma gave us two GIANT zucchinis (they are seriously longer than my forearms) which are just perfect for making zucchini bread.

So this morning we woke up, had breakfast, kissed Daddy goodbye as he headed off to work and decided to have a baking session in our PJ’s. A perk of being a stay-at-home mum: you can do anything in your jammies! Here’s my recipe:

• 1 1/2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups grated zucchini (roughly two normal to small size zucchinis)

Preheat your oven to 325F.

Combine flours, salt, baking soda and powder, and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Mix thoroughly, then set aside.

At this point, I like to get my zucchini grated. After washing, I cut this giant beast in half, and then in quarters.

I scooped out the seeds with a spoon simply because with a zucchini this big, the seeds are about the size of pumpkin seeds which aren’t great to get grated up for the bread. However, if you are using normal size zucchini’s just grate the whole thing.

Once grated, set it aside as it’s the last ingredient you mix in.

Next up combine your sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl.

Mix them thoroughly together.

Then pour your dry ingredients into the wet mixture, and combine very thoroughly. This will end up very thick – not as thick as a real dough, but much thicker than batter.

Then add in your zucchini and mix thoroughly. The moisture from the zucchini thins out the batter some, so it becomes much more pourable.

And as always, the assistant gets to sample the batter.

Pour in it whatever bread/muffin pans you prefer (I stick with my mini loaf pans) and bake for 45 – 60 minutes (for bread) and 25 – 30 minutes (for muffins). Let it cool in the pans for about 45 minutes to an hour once out of the oven.

Slice, and enjoy!

Until next time,

Connect With Me

Nom Nom ‘Nana Bread

Thanks to my two and a half year old I now pronounce the word ‘banana’ as ‘nana’, and thus apply it to all banana related things.

It was cool enough last week for me to get in some baking. Yay! Upon opening my freezer, I discovered that I had SEVENTEEN overripe frozen bananas in there. So naturally, some banana bread was in order! Especially since it then meant I had room for some fro yo in the freezer. Yummo.

I always use overripe bananas when making banana bread. I usually wait until they are fully spotted and brown in the fruit basket, then I pop them in the freezer where they last for a long time. . .I don’t think mine have ever really lasted longer than a couple weeks in the freezer since I bake all. the. time. But I would say they’d last many months frozen for sure. I use the overripe bananas mainly because they are so much sweeter than ‘ready to eat’ bananas, which really cuts down on the sugar you have to add. (Just as an FYI, the reason the banana fruit browns is the process of the starch turning to sugar – hence the sweeter-when-brown deal.)  So I got out my recipe book and went to town!

This recipe is my dad’s version – I’ve been eating this banana bread my whole life!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 & 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups mashed bananas (roughly 6 average size bananas)
• 1 & 1/4 cups white flour
• 1 & 1/4 cups wheat flour
• 1 & 1/2 tsps baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
  Adding walnuts is always optional; I can’t stand them, so my bread is nut-free!
  Preheat oven to 350F.

Add flours, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. . .

. . .and mix well!

 
In a separate larger bowl, combine oil and sugar and beat until creamy. Also, mash your bananas – I usually do it after the oil/sugar step. I opted not to photograph getting the frozen bananas out of the peels and mashing them because frankly, it looks incredibly gross. It really does – seriously unappetizing. . .but I promise you’ll end up with delicious banana bread!

After the oil and sugar is creamed, add in eggs and beat well.

Then pour in your mashed bananas and mix until fully blended together.

Pour you dry ingredients into the wet mixture,

and combine thoroughly.

And of course my little baking assistant always gets to sample the batters!

Pour batter into loaf pans. I use a silicon pan with four mini loaves as you can see. I find them much easier than dealing with metal ones – despite being stainless steel all the ones I used to have would end up rusting. These are amazing, completely non-stick meaning no greasing is needed, and super easy to clean. Can’t go wrong in my book! If I feel like making full size loaves, I use glass pans, which definitely DO need to be greased before the batter is put in! These also make great muffins – fill your muffin tins 2/3 full.

Bake for 45min to 1hr for loaves; I’d check muffins after 25mins. Once out of the oven, let cool for a full hour for loaves – thirty minutes for muffins. Then pop out of the pans and enjoy!

This bread also freezes extremely well. I usually give away some of my loaves to my family, but occasionally we’ll pop a couple into the freezer to have on hand. A couple slices with a cup of tea is one of my all time favorite breakfasts. . .or afternoon snacks. . .or both in one day. Yum.

Lastly, a quick aside about my baking. You may notice in my photos there aren’t any electric mixers – handheld, or stand. I don’t use them in everyday baking (I use a handheld mixer when I make buttercream frosting – doing that by hand would just be too difficult for my taste). I know I’m a bit old fashioned at heart, and maybe that’s why, but I’ve just never seen a need! Everything I make is easily done by hand with a whisk. Yes, it takes a bit more elbow grease, but I’m fine with that. However, if you use a mixer – simply apply it where it’d normally be used!