Gifting from your Kitchen | 110

We're deep into the holiday season now and I absolutely love to involve food in my gifting. In this episode, I get into how you can outdo the store bought gifts with simple and easy recipes from your kitchen. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. This is episode one and Gifting
from your Kitchen. We are officially halfway through December. How
are you holding up? I would say I'm hanging by
a thread. This month has been so crazy for me
that I've genuinely had to take things just one week

(00:28):
at a time. So early this morning, during my little
early morning work session, I sat down and I did
a status check on gifting. What I need to still buy,
acknowledging that I still need to wrap everything, what parties
we still have left to attend, how many days my
kids have left of school where I can get stuff done,
et cetera. I also made a game plan for gifting

(00:49):
from my kitchen. What are we going to make and
take to neighbors, teachers, friends, and so forth. It's a
two parter because not only do I think it's a
nice gesture to give to these people, it's also kind
of woven into our family tradition each year, and so
if we didn't do any gifting from our kitchen, I
think I feel a little bit sad about it, so

(01:10):
in the midst of everything we still have going on,
we will bake. And it's actually what we're going to
spend the last half of today's podcast talking about. But
before we do that, let's do what we always do
and discuss a few recipes you could throw on your
meal plan for the week. First up, a new recipe
and recipe Club Orange chicken Pacata with pomegranate. Now. Inspired

(01:31):
this recipe as I was developing it was I love
chicken pacada, just classic lemon chicken pacata, and my family
loves it. It's chicken my kids will always eat. I
love this simple lemon butter sauce. And as we are
moving into fall and winter, I was like, what if
we did this with fresh orange juice instead of fresh
lemon juice, and instead of adding capers, we hadd pomegranate seeds.

(01:54):
And so I kind of took the formula of chicken
pacada and I applied it to more of a wintry
flavor profile and it was so good. I serve it
with rice. It's so pretty because you've got the pomegranate seeds.
This orange butter sauce that you drizzle over the chicken
is super super yummy. So we're actually having people over
and I'm gonna make this because it looks as good

(02:16):
as it tastes. And it's very very simple, a little
chopped parsley on top, and you've got the red and
the green and the orange and it's is very pretty.
So that's not our meal plan. Secondly, I am feeling,
you know, we are right in the heart of comfort
food season and mama needs salad. Like I put on
our meal plan my chopped kale caesar with salmon, because
I've just been feeling something that feels a bit lighter,

(02:39):
and this homemade caesar dressing is so good. In fact,
I saw someone this week, a friend who said she'd
made it for like a book club party, and I
was like, oh, yeah, I need to make that. I'm
missing that. That is such a good recipe. So we've
got it. We've got a kale caesar and then finally
we're going to make my creamy chicken toortlinip. So simple,

(03:02):
so hearty because it's got the toortolini in it and
it has a rotisserie chicken in it, so you've got
the protein there and the hardiness from the filled pasta.
It's got some spinach and it's just ooh, it's super tasty.
So those are three recipes I'm definitely making this week.
You can find and print them all in Recipe Club
individually or in our weekly meal plan with an easy
to follow shopping list that's broken down by recipe. You

(03:24):
guys all know Recipe Club is an amazing recipe resource.
We've got hundreds of recipes developed specifically for weeknights with
busy people in mind. The real magic though, in Recipe
Club is this simple dinner system that it provides. So
you get weekly meal planning emails, a site designed to
help you with dinner time decision fatigue, recipes that are
family tested and clearly written. It's just an incredible resource

(03:46):
for thousands of families that we help to get dinner
on the table each week. We are continuing our holiday
sale and the entire site is fifteen percent off, and
if you're a Recipe Club member you actually get an
additional disc twenty percent off of everything from memberships to
bundles and all of that good stuff. One note I

(04:06):
want to mention we are completely sold out of recipe Binders.
We do have a few recipe Binders as part of
a bundle, so it's a recipe binder with an annual membership.
And if you are wanting a binder anytime between now
and early spring, now is the time to get it
in one of those bundles, because we're going to be

(04:28):
sold out for a minute while we get those from
our manufacturers, so it's on sale. It's usually never on sale.
We don't have very many left. I anticipate that they
will sell out this week, So if you are interested,
get our bundle an annual membership to Recipe Club plus
a recipe binder, and do it quickly because they will
sell out and I don't want you to be sad

(04:49):
and you don't have your simple dinner system set up
for twenty twenty five. All right, let's jump into the
back half of the podcast and chat about gifting from
your kitchen. My favorite holiday gifts to give are usually thoughtful,
bonus if they're homemade, and most importantly edible, because I'm

(05:12):
the food girl, that's who I am. If you can
find a few hours to spend in the kitchen and
you can yield a batch of homemade gifts that are
easy on the wallet and really heartwarming for people to receive.
That is like a major win in my book, especially
when we're talking about gifting to our neighbors, to teachers,
to friends, things like that. So if you have the
right recipes on hand, they'll almost always beat storemont food gifts.

(05:36):
Especially with a nice spool of ribbon a few handwritten labels,
you can really transform even the most ho hum of
condiments like salsa, barbecue sauce into little charming packages. So
if you're hoping to pull off a few gifts from
the kitchen in the final weeks of December, let's just
take a few minutes and chat about some of my
favorite easy to make, easy to gift, sweet end savory

(05:58):
crowd pleasers. So we got everything from like punchy pickled
onions to a really quick homemade artisanal bread sauces. I've
got a great cranberry barbecue sauce, and obviously cookies, because
cookies are the best and that's what my girls want
to make this year. Before you decide what you'll be
gifting from your kitchen, ask yourself what your bandwidth looks like.

(06:21):
Do you have more time you can dedicate to this
project or less time than usual? So here are a
couple of things I suggest considering when asking yourself that question.
I always think it's really nice to make the effort
to include the recipe. So my favorite food gifts to
receive are ones where the recipe is attached. And attaching

(06:41):
a recipe for like your chocolate peanut butter bark or
popcorn ballser like I said the cranberry barbecue sauce, it
really just makes the gift even better to receive. So
I would start there, like if it means picking a
more simple recipe so that you can print the recipe
to that make it a tradition. Once you find a
recipe you like to gift, stick with it. I learned

(07:05):
this from my friend Jana. She does this. She has
these ginger cookies that her grandma used to make and
she's like famous for them now and every year people
look forward to getting Jana's ginger cookies. How sweet is that?
So it kind of cuts down on the decisions you
have to make, and in future years it becomes really
simple to decide what you're giving. It's like your family's
signature gift to give. So for years we gifted my

(07:27):
honeycrn recipe and that is so yummy. But honestly, I
just got a little tired of it. I got a
little tired of it. So we're doing our gingerbread cookies
and that mostly comes down to the fact that my
girls really like making them and they're excited to give them,
so that that's what we're doing this year. But if
you can be known for something by all means gift

(07:47):
that don't rule out edible gifts that you don't make.
If it's an extra crazy holiday season, consider gifting something
that's still tasty that you don't make. It have to
beat the selection of treats perfect for gifting than a
Trader Joe's, but gifting from a local bakery is another
great way to let someone else do the hard part

(08:10):
this year. So you could even take like a favorite
Trader Joe's like product like I actually have these really
delicious cookies that are like brownie cookies that incorporate the
Trader Joe's Peppermint JoJo's. So one thing that could be
fun is gifting a box at the Peppermint JoJo's with

(08:30):
the recipe for the cookies so that you could make
the cookies or you could just eat the JoJo's. But
that's an example of something like that. Or I have
a friend who just recently gifted me this maple butter
from Trader Joe's, and with it, she included a little
recipe of how she likes to enjoy it, so they
eat it with a honey crisp apple and the unexpected
cheddar cheese. So keep that in mind as well. That

(08:52):
also sales feels thoughtful and can be a great way
to go if you're really limited on bandwidth. Okay, let's
discuss a quick lineup of both sweet and savory recipe ideas.
So these are things that I have gifted in the
past and I really like. On the sweet side, I
have a chocolate peanut butter bark recipee that's super delicious.
It's got pretzels in it, so you got the saltiness.

(09:13):
Speaking of saltiness, I have a salted caramel sauce, which
is a delicious dirt sauce, a delicious dessert sauce, and
is actually an ingredient in my Caramelida brownies. And so
I could gift this sauce also with a recipe for
the Caramelidas, and that would be really fun. For years.

(09:35):
I did that in New York City. That was like
my go to when I live there. My vanilla almond
scones also hugely popular. Those are super yummy. In fact, man,
I should make those. Those are really good. But the
scones really good. The honey corn I mentioned the cookies
were doing. We're doing our gingerbread cookies, savor items. The barbecue.

(09:59):
The cranber barbecue sauce super good and it's the most
beautiful color, so that when you gifted in little mason jars,
it's just very pretty. And in the past I've attached
I have a pork tenderloin recipe with the cranberry barbecue sauce,
And if you're in Recipe Club, you could get that
and you could print it out and attach it. And
because all of our recipes are so darned pretty in

(10:19):
Recipe Club, you could just print it out as it
it'd look amazing. Buttermilk biscuits are great, pickled onions that
no kneed. Bread I talked about all good stuff. Finally,
let's just quickly talk about packaging a little bit. Presentation
is one of my favorite parts of gifting from the kitchen.
So if you've got the bandwidth, go beyond the paper

(10:41):
plate wrapped in foil, and there is some great links
on my Amazon storefront. You can find most of these
items that I list there right on Amazon or even
at a local restaurant supply store. That's another great place.
Things like takeout boxes are perfect for cookies and brownies.
It's nice because the coated material will keep the outside
of the box clean. You can seal it with a

(11:04):
sticker or wrap it in twine for a nice little touch.
Small Mason jars I have done this a lot. They
are perfect for homemade sauces, granola, soup, cookie mixes, and
I usually get those on Amazon. Clear Deli containers are
a great solution for if you want it to take
like a spread or a dip, or a snack mix

(11:24):
and popcorn, even frosting for things like cinnamon rolls. They
come in so many different sizes and that's a good
thing to keep in mind. Celofhane bags or rolls of celfane.
This is my mom used to always have growing up.
But they're great for small batch gifts. Whether it is
the paper plate and you wrap the celofene around it,
or do you just remember that from childhood. I just

(11:47):
remember from childhood. Every December It's like one area of
our kitchen would just pile up with the plates of
cookies with the celofane wrapped around them. I can hear
like the sound of the sellofhane. But it's nice. It's nice,
good for baked bread as well. And then I just
can't help myself. I have this list saved in my phone.

(12:08):
It's a little cheesy, but these are Christmas things for
gift giving. If you want to put something you know
with your gift from the kitchen, so we whisk you
and merry Christmas. You could add a little mini whisk
with a cookie mix for somebody, so dear, we wish
you a cup of cheer. You could do a hot
cocoa mix. We're nuts about you. You could do those

(12:30):
vanilla almond nuts a holiday treat for someone's sweet, spreading
holiday cheer. You could do little mini spatulas and do
like a cranberry butter or a honey butter. We we
just pop by to say a happy Holidays, popcorn, some
tasty cheer for you and yours warmest holiday wishes from

(12:51):
a humble yours baking spirits bright. Oh yeah, I use
that one for a while, and it's such a treat
to having you as a neighbor. So there you have it.
A few ideas if you're wanting to gift from your kitchen.
Hopefully talking through some of those sweet and savory ideas,
how to package things up and even some sayings is
helpful to get you started. Now, let's finish how we
always finish with my weekly gimme five. These are five

(13:13):
things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week.
And that is saying something because it's December, so I'm
looking for more ease and more enjoyment. Okay, First up,
my sister convinced me to get this, and I resisted
because I don't love gadgets in the kitchen. I'd like

(13:33):
to keep things pretty simple. But I kind of ate
my words on that when I fell in love with
my soda stream last year, and this is similar. This
is like a cousin to the soda stream. It is
a actually okay, I call it the cure Cat Chocolate Maker,
but I don't think it's actually called that. Let me
tell you exactly what it's called. It is called the
Cureic single cup. Is that what it is? Single serve

(13:57):
K cup pot coffee brewer. Okay, Cuig single cup, right,
we only use it for hot chocolate. And my sister
was telling me how she had this great little tradition
with her kids in as things got cold and in
December where they'd wake up every morning and she'd have
a cup of hot cocoa with toast and kind of breakfast,
and it was like this cute little thing they look

(14:18):
forward to. And my kids every day asked me to
make hot chocolate and it is such a powdery mess
that I finally was like, we're doing it. We're gonna
get the single cup. And honestly, it's good to have.
Like I used to use an electric kettle and I
haven't because I usually am just having my sparkling water now,
but I can get hot water quickly with this. It's

(14:40):
a great little thing and it's only like fifty bucks,
So I highly recommend it. The Cuig single cup. I
think it's a coffee brewer, but we're using it for
hot chocolate. And number two on my list were these
hot chocolate pods. Now, Like if you go to Target,
they sell the Smiths miss ones, but they're expensive. Amazon
sells a brand. Amazon's brand, Happy Belly sells them for

(15:02):
like half the price, and they taste almost identical. So
they are the hot Chocolate pods and they are the
Happy Belly brand. So in fact, if you're looking for
a family gift for somebody, when you're wanting to spend
like fifty seventy five dollars, one of these little hot
chocolate makers with those pods would be really fun. It's
super super fun. So that's been fun. Also, I wanted

(15:26):
to mention, I know Giving Tuesday was technically like ten
days ago, but I supported this incredible project called the
Humble Village Project, and they had an awesome, just easy
ten dollars donation for Giving Tuesday, and with it, it
supports this wonderful, this wonderful center for women and young

(15:49):
children in Guatemala. And when you supported them, you got
a download that included like a hide and Seek packet
and this really cute design almost like Christmas village, and
my girls have been coloring it and it's just so fun.
And it was a great opportunity for me to talk
to them about the village and how our money can

(16:10):
help people, even if it's small amounts of money. And
it's been it's cute, it's almost like a Christmas decoration
in our house now, so make sure you check that out.
The Humble Village project really really cool and something a
nice little service oriented activity for your kids in the
month of December. Next, about myself a Christmas sweater. On

(16:30):
this podcast, we talked about my Thanksgiving sweater. Turns out
I'm just justifying sweater for every major holiday. But I
bought it from the same place, Seyson, which has become
a new favorite of mine this year. But it is
so happy and cheerful and I want to wear it
every day the month of December. I think I've worn
it three times this week. It's the Emeal cardigan and
it's in this shade of red that is like the

(16:53):
perfect orange, poppy red, and every time I wear it,
get compliments and it just makes me really happy. And
what I like about it being solid red is I
feel like it can be my Christmas sweater that carries
me through Valentine's Day, so I can continue to wear
it frequently as we celebrate all the red holidays. Finally, oh,
you guys went back and forth on this, so I
mentioned there's a great brand material Kitchen. In fact, they

(17:16):
were on my Gimme five List a couple weeks ago
as well, but I found this. I bought two things
from them this week, and I went back and forth
out what to share. I guess I'll just share both.
But for my girls who are particularly interested in cooking.
Right now, they sell this cute little kid set that
is packaged so cute. It comes with a kid size

(17:37):
whist and a kid side spatula and this thing called
the cook Deck, and it's this cute little card game
about building a meal together. Oh my gosh, it's so darling.
It's regularly forty five dollars and it's on sale for
seventeen dollars right now. So I got each of my
girls one of these, and I can't wait to gift

(17:57):
them to them for Christmas. Check that out. And then
the other thing material Kitchen has that is just so
good is they have a really good pair of kitchen shears.
And they came out with they're called the Good Shears.
They came out this year with an additional color. They
had like just silver ones, and then they came out

(18:17):
with gold ones this year, golden shears. And what I
like about this is you can say those gold ones,
those are my kitchen shears. We're not using those to
cut paper, We're not Those ones belong in the kitchen.
And they're so pretty. They're so pretty. They're thirty five dollars,
not bad. I got a pair for my mom's the
stocking stuffer. I got myself another pair because I just

(18:40):
love them so much. And I am using a pair
of kitchen shears every single day in the kitchen and
then they usually go in the dishwasher and all that good.
So anyways, Material Kitchen such a fun brand, so many
great things. I did a lot of Christmas shopping with
them this year, and I'm always loving a small business,
so ye it. Thank you so much for listening today.

(19:02):
Make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss an episode.
Remember I created this entire podcast so that you would
have a quick twenty to thirty minute listen while you
map out your own meals for the week. This has
been something I've done for years as a meal plan,
listen to a podcast, and it's really, I think a
big part of my success because I look forward to
doing this task that is really easy to dread. So

(19:23):
appreciate you being here. Until next time, happy cooking, Happy holidays.
I'm Kelsey and look forward to chatting with you all
next week.