Homemade Food Gifts

Nothing beats a homemade gift. It symbolizes the epitome of love and care. Home chefs and home bakers can definitely attest to this. Family and friends love homemade nibbles. The best part is that it's an easy gift to make.

The New York Times Food section touched on this in an article written by regular contributor, Kim Severson. Food gift swaps are kind  of like culinary Facebook events. Everyone finds out on line and then people are paired with gift givers who also expect a home baked or home cooked gift in return.As with Facebook and Twitter it is a fun way to meet fellow foodies from across the country. There are moderators such as the website Food52 which is dedicated to cooking and decorating brings food lovers together. This year 1,1507 from fifteen countries signed up, (it's closed for this Christmas but you can sign up for next year's). Gifts can be anything from homemade jam to peanuts raised in an Alaskan backyard garden. A new mother, Adrienne Kerrigan, a Seattle food blogger received a container of frozen apples cooked forever from her food exchange couple. They had found out she was expecting and sent her  the same first food that they had fed her baby. As for people with allergies, celiac sufferers are paired with other allergy sufferers.Europeans are given names of foodies on their continent while Canadians are matched with fellow ones.

You don''t have to use Food 52 to have a food swap. If your family and friends love your cooking and baking then gift them with edible gifts. The Food section online has an amazing array of recipes for making fresh from the oven and stove top presents. Snack lovers will go wild for Melissa Clark's tamarind spiced nuts with mint. It's taking cashews and coating them in a blend of tomato paste, light brown sugar,honey butter and tamarind. The nuts are then baked in a 300 degree F oven for 25 minutes. Candy lovers will enjoy opening up a box of Florence Fabricant's buttery English toffee made with a pound of Lindt or Tobler chocolate and two and a half cups of butter. Then there's  David Tanis;' chocolate bourbon truffles , rife with heavy cream,  crushed pecans, or hazelnuts and of course, bourbon. He also has a savory pecan cookie, spiked with rosemary and Parmesan cheese. Give a tin of them with a dry sherry for a one of a kind gift. .If you have jam lovers in your circle surprise them with bacon onion jam, a blend of bacon, Spanish onions, and mustard seeds cooked down with dark brown sugar and balsamic vinegar. Bake a loaf of  sourdough to accompany it for a great lunch or hearty snack.

Food gifts are fun to make and fun to give . Join a food swap or give a holiday treat to friends and family. It'll be enjoyed and remembered throughout the entire year.