Expand Your Gift-Giving Dollar with Food Mixes in a Jar

Peggy R. Anderson

Extension Agent

December 14, 2011

Expand Your Gift-Giving Dollar with Food Mixes in a Jar

When the holiday season rolls around, many family budgets become strained. With a long list of family and friends, finding enough money to go around may be challenging. To help reduce the stress of this holiday season, try making gifts instead of purchasing them. Consider these fun and economical gift ideas:

·         Create gift baskets. For the family member who loves movies, make a “night-in” basket. Get a large bowl for popcorn to use as the container. Add packaged popcorn and a coupon for a free movie rental. Gardening, sports or any other themed baskets also work.

·         For parents with young children, provide a homemade coupon good for free baby-sitting. Other ideas include coupons for helping walk the dog, painting or cleaning.

·         Create a recipe booklet with favorite holiday recipes. Copy the recipes onto festive recipe cards, punch a hole in the corner of the cards and tie them together with a red ribbon. Holiday photo albums also can be used to hold recipes.

·         Fill a holiday mug with packets of flavored tea, hot cocoa or coffee for those who enjoy warm beverages. Or tie a packet of soup mix to a large wooden spoon. Include a bowl and package of biscuit mix for a complete gift.

·         If you are computer savvy, create homemade calendars for family members. These could include highlighted birthday and anniversary dates. Try adding family photos for a personal touch.

·         Repurpose old tins, filling them with cookies, muffins or other holiday goodies. A gift like this will be a delight to anybody who has little time for baking.

·         Make homemade mixes in a jar. Mixes for soups and cookies are popular gift items that are fairly inexpensive to make. The gift recipient will appreciate the attractive and thoughtful gift and also will value the convenience.

I’ve included one out of the four recipes that are featured in Publication FN-1494 entitled “Mix it Up . . . Food Mixes in a Jar”. The bulletin also has recipe cards that can be attached to the gift for you to copy off.

Cranberry-Oatmeal Cookie Mix

1c. plus 2 Tbsp. flour

1c. rolled oats

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

¼ c. brown sugar

¼ c. white sugar

½ c. dried cranberries

½ c. white chocolate chips

Layer the ingredients in a clean, quart-size jar. Cover the jar tightly with a lid. Decorate it and attach a copy of the recipe card

The recipe card:

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

1 container Cranberry Oatmeal Cookie Mix

Additional ingredients:           ½ c. butter

                                                1 tsp. vanilla

                                                1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix butter, vanilla and egg together until smooth. Add cookie mix and mix well. Place by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake eight to 10 minutes until golden brown. For best flavor, use this mix within nine months.

Makes 28 cookies. Each serving has 100 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbohydrate and 70 milligrams of sodium.

Schedule

Wednesday, December 14 – Burke County

Thursday, December 15 – Divide County

Friday, December 16 – Burke County

Monday, December 19 – Burke County

Tuesday, December 20 – Divide County