Homemade Gift Carnival

***Don't forget to add your own gift ideas- leave a comment, or link to your own blogpost!***


I love food gifts.
I love food.
When I love someone, I want to give them food.
I feel loved when I get food.
And a big plus: it doesn't clutter up the house.
(I've been working on keeping things clean/decluttered and have been blogging about it here.)

My friend Cara posted on her blog the other day, about homemade gifts. She linked to a Handmade Gift Carnival at The Nourishing Gourmet. I really enjoyed browsing through the gift ideas and got some great ones I'm going to try this year!

I typically make up some gift boxes, for employers and friends. Here is a post I did when I first started blogging.
I typically make Gingerbread Men (with frosting), Crab Apple Jelly, and some kind of bread. I have used Whole Wheat Bread and Swedish Raisin Rye Bread.

Last year I included Brian's Muesli and some Peanut Butter Granola, along with some coffee that our friend roasts himself (if you ask for his info in a comment I would be happy to pass it on via email!! He's wonderful with it!).

For teachers we've put a couple gingerbread men into Wilton Clear Party Bags.

So... for the first time ever I am branching out and doing a carnival of my own.
What do you do for homemade gifts and food gifts? Please blog about it and put your link here using Mister Linky:

Menu Plan Monday

Monday: Tortellni

Tuesday: Sausage Skillet

Wednesday: Chicken Mac & Cheese

Thursday: Pizza Rolls

Friday: Lentil Chili

Saturday: Pizza

Sunday: Whatchagot :-)

For more visit I'm An Organizing Junkie.

Coconut Oil

I've been hearing alot about the health benefits of oils and fats and I've been hearing some wonderful things about coconut oil. Now, I hate coconut. I can't stand the smell, the taste, the texture- nothing. But the rest of the family likes it and Brian loves coconut.

I typically use Extra Virgin Olive Oil for all my cooking. But then I started hearing things like this:

The higher the temperature to which the olive oil is heated, the more one should prefer the use of refined olive oils. When extra-virgin olive oil is heated above 350 °C (662 °F), the unrefined particles within the oil get burned. This leads to deteriorated taste and even toxicity

I went and visited my friend Cara, who made me lunch and used coconut oil. I hadn't noticed! Yay for me!!

So, I decided to give it a try. I was able to get Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil from Tropical Traditions.

I've been using it in everything to see what I think. I made scrambled eggs with it- tasted slight coconut.
Made cheesecake crust: replaced the butter with coconut oil- very coconutty, my mom loved it.
Greased my pans with it, used a pastry brush- it was like shortening. I could smell the coconut on the bread, but couldn't taste it. No one else noticed.
Used it to fry chicken in- no one noticed, not even me.
Put it in Baked Oatmeal, replacing the applesauce- I noticed it, but no one else did.
I still want to make granola with it, using the coconut oil instead of butter. I will say though, that since I know how strong this oil can be, I won't be tasting that one, but I'm confident everyone else will enjoy it.
I have really enjoyed using this and I'm really impressed with how they process it.
I think next I will try Expeller-Pressed Coconut Oil because it's not supposed to have much of a coconut taste, but still very healthy.

Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

**If you are purchasing from Tropical Traditions for the first time you can get a FREE copy of their Virgin Coconut Oil Book. Simply choose "Referred by a Friend" and enter my User ID# 5691384. This gets me credit toward coconut oil too. :-)**

Cheesecake

This last year my friend Kristy and I had a Pampered Chef party. (If you need a consultant, let me know, I know a great one!)
The special for the month was a spring form pan for a really amazing price. I've wanted one, but hadn't needed one... I justified it because it was such a good deal. So I finally pulled it out to try it.

I had to double my regular recipe that I put in a pie pan in order to get the right thickness in the spring form pan. I also had some cream cheese that was given to me, which had been frozen and gets a slightly different texture, similar to working with ricotta cheese, I think.


Cheesecake

Crust:
8 Graham crackers, crushed
1/2 c. butter softened
1/4 c. sugar
Mix and press into bottom of pan

Cheesecake:
4 8oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 c. sugar
Mix till smooth then add:
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
Pour over crust, bake at 350˚ for 70 minutes.

For the strawberry sauce I made something like this only put strawberries in instead.

Deal on Coconut Oil

Cara wrote about a coupon code for Tropical Traditions. I would encourage you to check out their Black Friday deal!! I'm going to be ordering some oil myself. She gets credit if you use her referral code, so I would encourage you to do that. :-)

The $10 off coupon code is good till midnight Nov. 29th, so check it out!

Pizza Crust and Taco Pizza

My friend Kristy got a new cookbook, she's been coming over about once a month and we've made a few dishes to put in the freezer. I really enjoyed going through the book, the recipes are easy but don't have much with cream soups. I was most impressed with the pizza crust we made.
We've made their Chicken Alfredo Pizza (that was delicious!!) and then we made more crust and put our regular toppings on.
Sunday I had some leftover Lentil Chili so we made some taco pizza. It was so good!!





No-Rise Pizza Dough
2 c. Warm water
2 T. Yeast
3 T. Sugar
1 T. Salt
4-5 c. Flour (can be all white or 1/2 wheat & 1/2 white)
~
Cornmeal
Olive oil

Makes 2 pizza crusts.

Put water, yeast and sugar into a stand mixer bowl, mix slightly and let sit for a few minutes to get the yeast working. Then add salt and mix and add flour until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the mixer bowl. Knead for about 5 minutes.
Dust pizza stone with cornmeal, roll out dough, brush with olive oil and prick with fork every 1/2-1 inch.
Bake at 500˚ for about 5 minutes.

Take out and let cool (I just started piling my toppings on, because it was going right back into the oven).

Taco Pizza
2 c. Lentil Chili
2 c. chopped cooked chicken, tossed with
1 T. taco seasoning
4-6 green onions, chopped
Shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese
Tortilla chips

Spread the chili over the crust, top with chicken, onions and cheese, bake at 450˚ for 15 minutes. Top with crushed tortilla chips. Now, I didn't do this- but I know it would complete the meal perfectly:
Top with shredded lettuce and diced fresh tomatoes.

I have tried to make taco pizza before, I've had some great ones at pizza restaurants, but it's never been too good at home. This one totally hit the spot though! It was great!

Wordless Wednesday

A continuation from last week:


For more visit Wordless Wednesday.