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Food Ventures

Specialty Foods and Cookbooks Great for Holiday Gifts

By Ann Hattes
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Home chefs discover in The Art of Cooking with Vegetables (Frances Lincoln publishers) unexpected combinations, complex flavors created with a few simple elements, and a passion for fresh and seasonal ingredients.

yum_hattesfall12Food items make wonderful gifts for the holidays, especially for those particularly difficult to shop for. Homemade cookies, candies, jams, pies and cakes always make superb gifts but specialty food gifts that you order and send directly to the recipient can help relieve the frantic pace of the busy holiday season. While ordering you can also order extra as handy hostess gifts and for your own entertaining.

Lotus Bakeries, makers of the popular Biscoff caramelized crisps referred to as “Europe’s favorite cookie with coffee” and based on an old Belgian family recipe, is offering festive holiday favor boxes filled with the cookies, perfect as stocking stuffers or a “thank you” to teachers, neighbors and friends. Through December 25, 10% of each purchase of the holiday favor boxes will be donated to the nonprofit, Teach for America (www.teachforamerica.org). Order at www.biscoff.com where you’ll also discover many recipes using their cookies and products.

Wisconsin’s European-inspired bakery of Swiss Colony (www.swisscolony.com) offers hand decorated Petits Fours, snowflake cakes, a Winking Santa Torte, candies and chocolates all made with the state’s home-grown butter.

Christie Cookie (www.christiecookies.com), makers of the signature “DoubleTree” chocolate chip cookies, offers a variety of cookies and brownies in holiday-themed gift tins for the “sweets” foodies you know.

For over 60 years Colorado’s Enstrom family (www.enstrom.com) has been making blocks of butter brittle toffee, filled with roasted almonds, covered in milk or dark chocolate and rolled in crushed almonds. Gift recipients break off chunks and enjoy.

The Dalmore (www.thedalmore.com) producing exceptional whisky since 1839 deep in the Scottish Highlands, has one of the oldest and rarest stocks of any highland distillery. What makes The Dalmore special is its unique artisanal process which few other brands use today to create complex flavor profiles. For example, The 12 matures in American white oak and Spanish sherry wood, The 15 matures in three types of Spanish sherry wood, and the Dalmore King Alexander III is a marriage of whiskies matured in six different woods: bourbon wood, oloroso sherry wood, Madeira barrels, port pipes, Marsala barrels and cabernet sauvignon barriques. Though it has sold bottles for $150,000, you can gift a bottle for under or over $200, befitting the true whisky connoisseur on your list.

Grand Marnier Cherry debuts in limited edition for the 2012 holiday season, blending the essence of European Griottes cherries with the traditional wild tropical orange. The marriage of orange and cherry flavors mellowed by the cognac makes a perfect gift for discerning palates, or to toast family and friends.

Cookbooks too make excellent gifts for both gourmands and harried homemakers. In The Daily Feast: Everyday Meals We Love to Share (Good Books), a family of seven cooks share recipes including many from their experiences living and traveling abroad. Each presents recipes for 3 complete menus – a soup meal, family meal, and a favorite guest dinner, with each dish picked because of its extraordinary flavor, balance of textures, eye appeal and ease of preparation.

Home chefs discover in The Art of Cooking with Vegetables (Frances Lincoln publishers) unexpected combinations, complex flavors created with a few simple elements, and a passion for fresh and seasonal ingredients. This is the first cookbook by Alain Passard, the Parisian chef who astonished the world by removing red meat from his Michelin-starred restaurant, dedicating himself to cooking with vegetables from his own organic farm. The 48 recipes, such as avocado soufflés with dark chocolate, are illustrated with Passard’s own collages.

Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts by award-winning author Alice Medrich focuses on quick tarts, seasonal fruits, press-in pie crusts, and lickety-split cakes. Inventive recipes, using convenient pantry items in new ways, are foolproof without requiring hours in the kitchen. There are quick options for transforming basics into desserts, like “Things To Do With Vanilla Ice Cream,” and “Things To Do With Ripe Strawberries.” Her Saucy Cranberry Maple Pudding Cake makes a perfect festive season dessert.

 


Recipe:

Saucy Cranberry Maple Pudding Cake

 

Ann Hattes has over 25 years experience writing about both travel and food for publications both in the US and internationally. A senior living in Wisconsin, she’s a member of the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Association and the Midwest Travel Writers Association.

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