Budget Foodie Gifts

Last week I covered both high and mid priced foodie gifts. Today it's going to be all about completely affordable presents for your favorite food lover. The best part of this is that you can create your own or even just go to your local supermarket. Even better is that you can come up with a wide variety that suits every taste and passion.

Themed food baskets are always fun to give and receive.Your local grocery stores can make them up for you whether they 're cookies and brownies or fruits. However you can be equally creative as well. Buy baskets at your local craft or dollar store and start piling in all the good stuff. Soup lovers may appreciate the colorfully packaged bags of dry soup ingredients along with a variety of crackers such as Oysterettes and Ritz. You can even add bowls and spoons too. A variation of this is with chili. Create a basket full of different chilis along with cans of different beans. Toss in a bottle of water for some laughs too. A pasta lover could have a goodie basket with both regular and whole wheat pastas along with fancy jarred sauces. Toss in some inexpensive pasta tongs and some cheese to give it some polish

For sweets lovers think about holiday baking or even candy making. You can come up with some lovely cookie trays, interspersed with candy canes and Hershey's holiday wrapped kisses.Luckily even packaged cookie mixes can be turned into a variety of different treats. Chocolate chips can be dipped in chocolate and simple sugar cookies can be turned into snickerdoodles or almond twists. A fresh made batch of fudge or haystacks, coconut mounds are another present worth thinking about giving as are chocolate dipped pretzel rods. Another easy treat is chocolate bark. Just melt either white, dark, or milk chocolate chips , add nuts and other candies such as M&M's, peppermint shards and toffee. Let set and then break into pieces.Put into a festive tin or on a tray.

You can still give a lovely foodie gift for pennies. All it takes is creativity to come up with baskets or freshly made treats. These will make any food lover smile .

The Ultimate Comfort Food - TV Dinners

Nothing beats a TV dinner on a cold snowy or rainy night. There’s something infinitely comforting about either a piping hot, gravy infused pie or satisfying meatloaf with mashed potato. They’ve been a part of the American culinary landscape for almost sixty years and they’re just as good now as they were then.

C.A. Swanson and Sons created the first frozen meal in 1953. The first dinners were a take off of a traditional Thanksgiving one with sliced white meat, gravy and cornbread stuffing, peas and carrots were also added to round it out, The tray were designed to fit nicely in that new American addition to the living room - the TV tray. In 1960 Swanson added desserts such as apple cobbler and brownies . Nine years later the first frozen breakfast called Fresh Starts, appeared on the scene, giving busy families a chance to enjoy a hearty hassle free meal. Hungry man dinners appeared four years late r in 1973. These has big portions and diverse meals such a fried chicken and meat loaf. There are still Swanson TV dinners but now they’re in microwavable plastic try as opposed to the original aluminum.
What are the best TV dinners today? I’ve just discovered Marie Callendar’s meat pies. These are wonderful, homemade style potpies chock full of turkey or chicken chunks; a light gravy and veggies. I love the flaky crust which is similar to homemade. Of course there’s always Swanson, a favorite of mien since childhood. Nothing still beats their turkey and gravy and it’s still the best comfort food especially after a long, hard day.
TV dinners are a big part of the American landscape. They bring back good memories of sitting in front of the TV watching favorite shows. They’re still the perfect dinner or even lunch for those of us too busy sometimes to cook.