Gift Baskets

When it comes to gifts, I always prefer giving something personal to my family and friends, something that's useful to them. Gifts baskets perfectly match the description and ofcourse they look beautiful too. Recently for our house warming party, I created gourmet food baskets as hostess gifts. Our basket had Mango Nectarine jam, Apple Almond bread, Roasted spiced nuts and white wine. Except for wine, I made the rest at home. My Sis and Sis-in-law did an amazing job of gift wrapping these baskets.
It's very easy to put together a gift basket that looks very elegant and professional. You can buy individual items from store and assemble them all together. The contents can vary depending on occassion like Baked goods, chocolates, jams, cheese, wine, fruit, bath products, candles....etc.
I will post the recipes for Mango Nectarine jam, Apple Almond bread, Roasted spiced nuts soon but here is the proceduce to make a gift basket.

What you need:

1 Wicker basket (Dollar store is the best place to get this)
1 Roll of Cellophane transparent plastic wrapping sheet (Can find them in any craft store)
Decorative ribbon and bow
1 Tissue gift wrap sheet (Again Dollar store is the place. You get 20 or so in $1 pack)
Paper shred or old new papers

Steps to follow:

1. Take the wicker basket, line the bottom with paper shred or old news papers (crumble them).
2. Set up your contents in the basket to check if paper cushioning is enough. You can place more paper on one side to get different height for contents.
3. Now take the contents out and cover the bottom paper cushioning using tissue wrap. Tuck excess tissue to sides of the basket.
4. Place the contents so that they sit sturdy in the basket. Let tall items lie flat or at a low angle (ex: wine bottle)
5. Cut cellophane sheet with length atleast more than twice of basket size. If there is excess you can trim but not the other way. So have little extra to start with.
6. On a table, place the basket in center of cellophane sheet and bring all sides of sheet to top of the basket. Tie it firmly as a bundle with ribbon.
7. Cut excess if needed and stick a decorative bow.

　

Kickoff

I've been thinking about starting a blog from past 4 years but never got to it. I am glad at least I started it now. Better late than never :-)

I welcome you all to my humble abode where I would be sharing my everyday things like recipes, crafts, gardening and travels. Beware I might be rambling about my feelings too (as soon as my husband reads this I guess he will stay out of my blog :-)

I am a Software Engineer by day and passionate, self taught cook by night. I live with my Husband in sunny California. I am also a newbie gardener and will share my learning experience as I go along.

Geek that I am, I titled my first post as 'Kickoff' (cannot help with so many years of working in IT industry).

Here is the post about one of my favorite baked goods Biscotti. I took the recipe from Martha Stewart website and modified a little bit. They are not too sweet and perfect for dunking in tea or coffee. Also only fat component is from egg yolks.

What you need:
(Makes around 35-40 pieces)

3/4 cup shelled unsalted pistachios

3/4 cup roughly chopped almonds

3/4 cup sugar

3 large eggs

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Steps to Follow:

1. Mix flour, almonds, pistachios, sugar, salt in a bowl and keep it aside.
2. Whisk eggs and vanilla extract in another bowl. To this add the flour mixture and combine everything to make the dough.
3. Divide the dough into two parts and shape each one in the form of a log. Place these logs on a baking sheet. For easy clean up, I line the baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
4. Preheat oven to 350 F. Once it's ready place the baking tray and bake for 15-20 min. The logs should be firm to touch and you can see browning on the bottom.
5. Take the logs out, cool them for about 30 min.
6. Transfer these logs to a cutting board. With a serrated knife cut them into half inch slices.
7. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 F. Place these slices on the baking tray in a single layer and bake for another 15-20 min.
8. Cool them on a rack and store them in air tight container. They stay good easily for a week.

They are also perfect as gifts for family and friends.