Gift Ideas…Food and More
Today I found apples that are almost free. I am so excited to be able to can some apples. I admit so far this year the only thing I have canned is barbecue sauce. I did not plant a garden and I have been out of the loop for free stuff from friends with fruit trees and gardens. If you too have decided you need to get serious about growing your own food check out the Food for Everyone Foundation under my blog roll. They have great books for beginning and even more experienced gardeners. I will do better next year. For now I am thrilled to have apples to can. That prompted an idea for a Christmas gift.
I have decided to can apple pie filling and to give a half case of pie filling and fill the other half of the case with the fruit crisp topping. Now don’t you wish you were on my gift list?
Then it dawned on me why not do that with other foods in a jar gifts. I could do a few jars of soup mix with bread mix in a jar. I could do applesauce with jars of pancake mix. I could do jars of chili mix with jars of cornbread mix
Cornbread
1 1/2 c All-purpose flour
1 1/2 c Cornmeal
1/2 Non-fat dry milk powder
1/4 c Sugar
5 T Baking powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
Add flour to a quart canning jar. Add cornmeal. Combine milk powder, sugar, baking powder and
salt. Add to finish
filling the jar.
Directions:
Place mix in large bowl. Cut 1/3 c Shortening into cornmeal mixture.
Spray a 9x 13 -inch baking pan.
Make a well in the center of the dry mixture.
Combine 2 beaten eggs and 1 1/2 cup water, add all at once to cornmeal mix. Stir just till batter is
smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in a 425 degree oven 20-25 minutes or till golden
brown and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
I have also been looking at my food storage and thought a recipe book with recipes using food
storage would be a great idea. Recipes could include those using only canned foods, my favorite
recipe using only canned foods is taco soup. Recipes could concentrate on long term storage
items, include 10 rice recipes, 10 beans recipes, and 10 oatmeal recipes. Foods that are easy to
includein everyday meal planning. I have been working on a cookbook which is almost ready but
having family recipes is always appreciated.
Another idea is to give frozen meals. I have seen this done at a baby shower and it was great!
Everyone made a dinner that could be frozen and used when mom was just too tired to think
about making dinner. There are lots and lots of recipes that freeze well, and it’s food storage!
I wanted to take a minute and let you know that I love your blog. I subscribed to it a few weeks ago, and keep checking up on it. I made an entry on my blog suggesting that my readers come check this out! I hope you don’t mind. I really appreciate you taking your time to help others!
I forgot to mention, the post will appear on 10/26 at 8am.