Gifts from the Kitchen Garden
When holiday time rolls around each year, thoughts naturally turn to gifts. As a Master Food Preserver and a Master Gardener, I give gifts that most often come from my kitchen and my garden. Recipients seem to love getting handmade items, especially food. Below are some ideas for you to consider for your own gift giving.
I usually start this process early. As I plan my garden for the year, I often think about potential gifts from upcoming crops. It helps to determine a theme for the year. A theme provides inspiration to be fun and clever and different from year to year. One year the theme was "breakfast." My siblings and friends received homemade pancake mix (with recipe), homemade blueberry syrup, and a bag of coffee beans.
Two years ago, I settled on a theme early in the summer and prepared the gifts when the fruits and vegetables were in season. The theme was "condiments." Everyone received jars of home preserved pickles, catsup, relish, along with a jar of homemade mustard. The pickles, relish, and catsup were processed in a hot water bath. The mustard was made a few days before the gifts were given because my favorite mustard recipe is not canned and must be refrigerated.
The theme of "desserts" can be easy to accomplish and pleases almost everyone. Making zucchini-cranberry bread allows me to use the zucchini I shred and freeze during the summer. This bread is quite seasonally appropriate and looks festive with flecks of green and red. If you froze pawpaw pulp you can make pawpaw bread.
An assortment of jams, preserves, marmalade, and jellies with a loaf of bread makes a charming gift. An assortment of "butters"—apple butter, pear butter, peach butter—is a similarly-themed option.
It is useful to know the recipient to provide a personalized gift. Small children (and many adults) like fruit leather. My brother and sister love (LOVE!) the pickled three bean salad that I annually make for them. While not all ingredients are from my garden, I usually try to make this salad during the growing season so that I can use a mixture of freshly-picked yellow and green string beans. This salad is possible to make this late in the season using store-bought string beans. I could use the onions I’ve harvested so that there is something in it from my garden.
If the recipient enjoys cooking, there are so many possibilities. If you have dried herbs from your garden, give one (or more) in a labeled small jar. Alternatively, create a mixture of herbs or a dry rub mix. If you grow lavender, a jar of dried culinary-grade lavender flowers is very gourmet. A jar of dried edible flowers is pretty and quite unique. Include a recipe or two. I tend to get into "food ruts" and really appreciate new ideas, ingredients, and tried-and-true recipes. If you dried tomatoes, gift some with pasta and a recipe. A braid of garlic, braid of onions, a wreath of herbs, or a string of dried chili or cayenne peppers will be appreciated gifts for the cooks in your life.
It is easy to give items that have been dried and items that have been processed in a hot water bath or pressure canner. Those items are shelf stable at room temperature. Frozen items are more difficult. Refrigerated items require that the item stay at refrigerated temperatures to be safe, at 40°F and below. (Throw away foods stored more than two hours at temperatures above 40°F). Refrigerated items do make wonderful hostess gifts, traveling from your refrigerator to theirs, a trip my homemade hot fudge sauce makes every year. With home-canned items, always follow research-based processes and research-based recipes. Always start with the best-quality ingredients and clean your food preparation surfaces and equipment well. Great recipes and approved processes can be found at the National Center for Home Food Preservation or Penn State’s own Let’s Preserve Series. Experts generally advise eating home-canned items within a year, so those that were made during the summer are still appropriate to give and safe to eat.
There is still time to create gifts with fresh in-season produce: apples, pears, cranberries, cabbage, and winter squash. Make and process apple butter, sweet apple relish, spiced apple rings, or apple pie filling. Dry apples into apple rings or fruit leather. A pie pan and a jar of apple pie filling wrapped in a bow is a generous gift. With cranberries create cranberry orange chutney, cranberry sauce, or cranberry marmalade. Pears are also available and make flavorful pear preserves. Oranges can be transformed into marmalade or dried into rings to become an ingredient in a mulled cider mix.
Make sauerkraut! Cabbage that is harvested after a frost is sweeter and makes a better sauerkraut. This fermentation process is complete in three to four weeks at temperatures between 70° and 75°F. Fresh sauerkraut retains all of the wonderful probiotics created through fermentation but must be refrigerated and used relatively quickly. Sauerkraut that has been processed in a hot water bath is shelf stable at room temperature and should be eaten within one year.
Winter squash has a long shelf life. Put a few from your garden in a basket with a recipe and an additional ingredient or two and present the giftee with a unique (albeit heavy) gift.
Flavorful and thoughtful gifts created from your kitchen garden will be appreciated by any lucky recipient. Have fun planning, making, and giving them.
Please go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation for instructions on safely preserving food (including fruit leathers) and to find the following recipes: Apple Butter, Sweet Apple Relish, Spiced Apple Rings, Apple Pie Filling, Berry Syrup, Sauerkraut, Three-bean Salad, Cranberry Sauce, Cranberry Marmalade, Orange Marmalade, Pickled Dilled Beans, Sweet Pickle Relish, and more!
