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!

Lemon-Thyme Chicken

Although I am actually not a huge fan of lemon flavored foods, I love this meal. The lemon doesn’t overwhelm the other flavors, and it’s a great combination with thyme. Plus, the lemon smells amazing, and just screams SPRINGTIME!! and FRESHNESS!! while it’s cooking. To me at least.

You will need:

• 2 -3 cloves garlic
• 1 – 2 tbl olive oil
• 2 lemons
• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 cups chicken broth
• ground thyme
• salt and pepper

Start by zesting one lemon.

Then mince your garlic cloves.

Combine your olive oil, lemon zest, garlic, and 1/2 tsp thyme in a bowl. Mix until combined.

Place your chicken breast in a pan, and pour in the chicken broth. Pardon my really old, stained, glass pan!

Then pour on your oil mixture, evenly covering both chicken breasts.

Sprinkle on some more thyme – I didn’t measure, just a light dusting. Add on salt and pepper.

Cut your second lemon into four wedges.

Squeeze the juice evenly over the chicken,

and then place the wedges in the pan.

Cover with foil, and cook at 375F for about fifty minutes, then uncover and cook for another ten. Serve with your favorite rice, and your veggie of choice! Make sure you drizzle the cooked juices over the rice – it’s heavenly.

Enjoy!

-Kayly

 

December Baking: Week 1

The first week of December’s baking was for my husband’s birthday. We didn’t have a huge party, just some friends over to play games. My husband is a big Magic the Gathering enthusiast – he goes every Friday for Friday Night Magic at our local comic shop, competes in some tournaments throughout the year, and is currently studying to become an official judge!

This year he requested a carrot cake – my first time ever making one! I consider myself a good baker; I can make a mean cupcake, and frost it prettily, but I haven’t actually made a layer cake since I was in high school. Which is almost 10 years ago. . .so I was a bit intimidated.

But overall, I’m really happy with how it turned out! The cakes themselves seemed a little flatter than I was expecting, but once they were frosted it made for quite a decent sized cake. As for the decorating job. . .well, let’s just say it was made with more love than skill! The writing is legible (first time piping lettering!) so that’s a bonus!

Best of all, this cake was DELICIOUS. I got some recipe advice from friends, and had a couple people tell me that the Betty Crocker cake and frosting recipes were excellent. They were right! I’m not even a huge cream cheese frosting fan but this one was fantastic! I highly recommend it.

Click here for the recipe!

I also made a batch of Lemon Bar Brownies. Back when I was doing the farmer’s market, these were a best seller. I sold out of them every week. I think it’s the combo of fresh squeezed lemon juice and fresh lemon zest that knocks these out of the park. It gives them such a great balance of sweet and tang. And their consistency is really good – so dense and moist.

Click here for the recipe!

And finally, I baked my hubs a birthday surprise – Magic the Gathering cookies!! For those who don’t know much about MTG, these are the symbols of different types of cards in the game. My hubby loves iced sugar cookies so when I was browsing Pinterest ages ago and saw these, I immediately pinned them to make for his birthday! Go check out the original cookie post via Not Your Momma’s Cookie, which most certainly puts my cookies to shame. She has so many awesome cookies ideas; I’m sure I’ll use more in the future.

The cookies weren’t actually that hard to make, just time consuming. And let me tell you, piping on designs with icing is NOT the same as drawing with a pencil! But they came out decently (other than two bloopers that I very unfortunately forgot to take pictures of before eating) so I will definitely make these again in the future!

Click here for the sugar cookie recipe, and here for the icing recipe!

Our gaming get together was good fun as always. I sat out on the Magic playing and got some drawing done, but definitely joined in for some Acension and Lords of Waterdeep (my current favorite board game).

Phew! Week 1 of baking accomplished. . .just in time to start Week 2 of baking! Stay tuned for Vanilla Cupcakes, Chocolate Cupcakes, Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, and Dinosaur Cookies.

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Kitchen Sink Chicken

I found a recipe on Pinterest titled ‘Rainbow Chicken’ which looked delicious. After a teensy bit of searching, I found the source of the recipe, which can be found here via Kitchen Parade. However, as I do with most recipes, I changed it up a bit, so here’s my version!

I refer to this recipe as ‘Kitchen Sink Chicken’ simply because it is so versatile. You can throw in any combo of veggies you want and it will still be delectable. That’s my kind of recipe. Also, my version feeds two adults + one toddler, however it can easily be adapted to more people – just up your ingredients proportionally.

Ingredients

• 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts (This is just what I use – really use any kind of chicken meat you want!)
• 4 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 3 tsp olive oil
• 2 tbl red wine vinegar (or in my case you can discover you are OUT of red wine vinegar and make your own using 1 parts red wine to 2 parts apple cider vinegar! Works like a charm.
• 1 lemon
• 1 medium sized onion

For the vegetables you can really use whatever you want! I used:

• 1 zucchini
• 1 summer squash
• 2 small red potatoes
• 2 1/2 carrots (aka all I had left in my fridge)
• roughly 1 cup cauliflower florets
• roughly 1 cup broccoli florets

Neither my little one or myself like peppers, so we left those out. But if you like them – toss them in for sure!

Preheat your oven to 425F.

After gathering all my veggies, I started off making the spice rub first.

Then it’s time to chop up the big stack of veggies (excluding the onion and lemon). I totally forgot to take a picture of my pile of chopped veg. . .whoopsie daisy.

Then, chop your onion and line the bottom of the pan with them.

Take your chicken out, and give them a good rub down of the spice mixture with your fingers. I’d say I used about 2 – 3 tsps of the mixture per breast, just to give you an idea. When finished, lay them on top of the onion bed.

Looks pretty good already!

Next grab a (giant) bowl – large enough to hold your whole pile of chopped veggies with room for stirring! I used a spatula to transfer my rub mixture into the big bowl. Had I thought ahead, I would have just made the rub IN the big bowl. . .but I didn’t. Next time! Pour your veggies in on the top of the rub and give them a good stirring to thoroughly coat them as much as possible.

Spread the veggies around and on top of the chicken.

Then slice up your lemon, remove any seeds, and lay on top of your meal.

How delicious does this look?! Om nom nom.

Cover with foil and bake! Mine took about an hour and a half but my chicken breasts were very thick. I’d still say an hour minimum is a good place to start. Once done, let cool for 10 -15 minutes, then serve and enjoy!

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