So, without needing to guess much, it’s likely going to be a shittacular Holiday Season. Everything is going to be expensive and stupid and extra scammy and shit. More so than usual (Subscribe for more uplifting messages every day delivered to your inbox. Or don’t. See if I care.)
Anyway, I cook, and make lots of homemade stuff as the season and market allows.
I just finished making 10 jars of super dill-y dill pickles, and a few of okra. Which I’m making with the plan of giving them to people I like for the holidays, as people usually love the recipe I use. I never planned on being “the pickle guy” but here we are.
Might also make some bubbly 7% ABV spiced honey wine, beer, vanilla extract, herbal bitters for coughs. We’ll see.
Just curious if anyone has any similar plans in mind and what y’all are making.
Ever since Covid, my family and I have been exchanging food as gifts. Grocery-hopping to stores with empty shelves scared our grandparents, so a new family tradition was born.
These gifts consist of homemade pies, cookies, breads, pastries, dried figs from a relative’s tree, frozen chicken pot-pies, ginger marmalade, honey purchased from a family farm and bean soup in a mason jar (dry). A cousin who doesn’t cook will be gifting us with empanadas purchased from a co-worker; she’s very creative with packaging and makes her gifts look like they came from an expensive boutique. Our younger cousins are making soap, peppermint bark and sewing gift bags.
My brother is waiting for the price to drop on a certain wine. When it does, he pays a visit to the store manager who gives him a discount if he buys a certain amount. My mom is making her signature mini fruit tarts and placing them in holiday tins she purchased last year for about 50-99¢ each. She also wants to make madeleines.
This year, we’re adding DIY fresh fruit baskets at the request of our grandparents. The kids are getting money stuffed inside an origami frog (last year’s crane was a failure). I will be making several frozen lasagna (9x9) and mini loaves of banana bread baked in holiday-themed stoneware (very inexpensive).
My entire family would absolutely welcome you and your pickled okra; we don’t have a pickle guy. We have my uncle who made pickled bitter melon… it wasn’t bad.
EDIT: My dad made vanilla extract during lockdown, it took almost 2 years but it was a hit!
My pickles to your fam! This all sounds amazing.
I’m very curious about the frozen chicken pot pie and lasagna, mostly about the delivery. Is it sort of a planned gift thing? I ask because I was thinking about making a frozen cobbler, but thought it would be crazy.
If you can freeze it, you can gift it!
We plan our holiday menu and gifts during Labor Day weekend as we’re cooking out and chowing down. Since everyone in my family has a chest freezer in their garage, whomever is hosting Christmas will make that freezer available so we can put our beautifully packaged and labeled gifts inside.
We’ll bring our own cooler if it’s unseasonably warm and make extra ice to put in plastic zip bags.
For our cousins’ significant others, my dad modified a cardboard box to fit a lasagna with room for ice; I’ll be gluing the instructions on the box later on. They don’t know they’re getting it so my dad’s preparing a container for transport. They’re the only ones who have to travel for over an hour.
My aunt got her reusable insulated bags from the grocery store to use for her frozen pot-pies. After her pot-pies are wrapped and frozen, they go into that pre-frozen insulated bag back into the freezer.
I think your frozen cobbler is a great idea! I’ll be borrowing it soon. I hope I answered your question. This is an awesome post with great ideas. Bookmarked!
This is aaaaaaaamazing info! Thanks, and I absolutely plan to borrow these ideas as well. I make a veg lasagna at home for a big weekend meal with leftovers for the week, and so making a double batch and popping one in the chest freezer in an aluminum disposable pan is beyond workable. I’m genuinely enjoying the idea of bringing one to a White Elephant exchange to see what happens.
Somewhat related - if you’re already comfortable doing lasagna, this is a rich and delicious variation I tried once. Worth the time, but it needs some side dish to support it, like a salad to break the richness - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1026104-saag-paneer-lasagna
Oh my… thank you so much for that recipe, I don’t have that in my arsenal.
Bookmarked, archived and saved in PDF just in case the internet takes a nap.