Food makes a great gift

This time of year people like to give baked goods as gifts to co-workers, friends and family. With a lot of people in somewhat dire financial situations this year, homemade gifts and home cooking will probably be very standard this year. 

Though no matter what the situation was my mother made baked goodies as gifts every year. 

She would bake up all sorts of sweets and give them to the people who worked with my dad, her co-workers, family friends and family members. 

Those gifts were always met with a delighted smile and generally someone starting a pot of coffee and asking her to sit down and talk with them for a bit while they sampled all the goodies she brought them. I think the visiting was more important than the goodies for some folks. 

Generally, mom made things like magic cookie bars, the richest fudge I’ve ever eaten, my husband’s favorite triple layer bars, my favorite pecan pie bars and sometimes another cookie or two depending on her mood or if she wanted to try something new. 

Her containers she presented them in were usually lined in wax paper between each layer of goodies and usually packed full as she could get them. 

She still does this but for a slightly smaller group of people since my father and she have retired. 

I too have gotten in on the act when I couldn’t afford to gift close friends with anything more than a few baked goods. I was making them for us anyway, what were a few extra servings? Generally, I go the easier route than mom though due to having to work through the holidays most of the time. 

A few years ago, I made very time consuming but absolutely amazing homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, muddy buddies, homemade Chex mix and sugar cookies dipped in chocolate then dipped in toasted almond slivers. 

I cheated on the sugar cookies, once I had finished with the difficult oatmeal raisin cookies I was about “cookied” out. So, I used refrigerated cookie dough, baked them and then made my own chocolate sauce to coat them, using butter and chocolate chips and a bit of vanilla extract in a double boiler. I then dipped the cooled cookies half way into the chocolate, coated with toasted slivered almonds on just the top and put in the freezer on wax paper to set. They came out beautifully and no one had any idea they originally started out as refrigerated store bought dough. 

I packaged them up using wax paper and ribbons, freezer bags and cheap holiday tins from a discount store, tied with a bow and ribbons and people were really impressed. I even mailed them to my dearest friends as far as Illinois and North Carolina who were very grateful for the gifts at time when they knew money was tight for my family. 

A lot of folks may be considering doing this sort of thing for the holidays this year. It still costs money but not nearly as much as one would think and a homemade gift is always appreciated. Even if your relatives are diabetic or have special diets you can still come up with great recipes these days to keep them on track and make them feel like they aren’t being left out. Products like Splenda have plenty of recipes on the packaging for sweet treats for those who can’t have refined sugar. 

Or instead of sweets you could make something else, a nice bread made in your handy bread machine or a spicy popcorn mix or like I did a homemade Chex mix flavored to your friends and family’s tastes. 

You could even try something like homemade Irish Soda Bread. My mom made one a few months ago that my father couldn’t rave enough about. 

Here is a recipe for a classic Dark Irish Soda Bread:

3 cups all-purpose flour 

2 cups whole wheat flour 

2 tsp. baking soda 

1 tbs. baking powder 

2 tbs. brown sugar 

2 1/4 cup buttermilk 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add all of the dry ingredients in a large