Don’t call me the bag lady
Alright, after a momentary setback, we’re back and rolling. This year’s much talked about Christmas gift baskets/bags were quite the undertaking, only because I had been fretting about what to make because I had forgotten what I decided to make. Remember, I came up with ideas for the next two Christmases last year because that’s just how my mind works – of course now I have the old second idea for next year’s gifts and a new idea I came up with while I was making this year’s gift. I should write these down so I don’t have to worry about what I’m making next year.
But that’s another post and I really should be writing that down for safekeeping. Hopefully I don’t lose the paper I write it down on. And we’re moving right along. Again.
So the contents of this year’s bags; I went with the bags again…I mean, when you can get 13 bags for 4 bucks with a 40% off coupon [yay Michael’s!] that’s way better than buying individual baskets, even if they are a buck. And I still got to decorate them the way I first imagined when I wanted to do boxes. Yeah, I wanted boxes at first after seeing one at the deli down the street from the office, which was where I got the decoration idea from in the first place. Plus the bags came in handy since I ended up having to leave quite a few for people who weren’t home when I stopped by. They hung quite nicely on doorknobs and mailboxes.
Did you follow all of that? I hope so because I’m not repeating myself.
But back to the beginning, the contents of this year’s bag was a jar of hot cocoa mix and Mexican wedding cookies. Yes, the same Mexican wedding cookies I made for the baking/football party earlier this year. I’m kind of sneaky like that. I had never made them before and wanted to try them out and that was the perfect avenue. Especially since I had originally planned on making macarons but was left scrambling for a new idea because I didn’t like the ones I picked up from Miette on a whim. I was slightly disappointed and never finished them. If I can figure out a recipe that doesn’t taste all that…meringue-y then I’d totally make them again. So we’ll see.
So to avoid that, I tested these cookies. Which worked out perfectly well since people liked them the first time and were still excited to get them the second time [people like my mom who has declared them her new favorite cookie and Tim who tore into the cookies the second he saw them].
Along with testing the cookies, I also tested hot cocoa mixes. There were quite a few recipes online and I originally thought of making a Mexican hot chocolate mix but eventually gave that up after not getting the right combination of spices [at one point all I could taste was cayenne pepper. Not very tasty]. I picked out a couple that I liked that didn’t involve non-dairy creamer and went to town testing them [thanks Tam, Lindsey and my Mom for your help and advice – I know that was a lot of cocoa to drink in a short period of time].
I had finally settled on one recipe [thank you Alton Brown] but still had some tweaking to do. It didn’t help that I was so sick of drink hot cocoa by the end of it and I was having trouble getting the mix to completely dissolve in the water with the additions I made [it left a lot of deposits around the cup]. I had seriously contemplated just copping out and buying pre-made mix and going from there but part of me felt so disappointed and defeated. I even bought sample packets from Cost Plus! Thankfully, after pricing things out [look at that; I can do math] it turned out to be more economical to just make my own so back I went into the lab/kitchen and worked it out a bit more before I finally [FINALLY] got it. All it took was a quick whirl through the food processor and then through the sifter and wah-la! Completely dissolving cocoa mix without the messy, greasy residue from the additional chocolate I added in [that was part of my tweaking to the original recipe]. And the best part was that it didn’t leave gunky not completely melted chocolate bits on the bottom of the cup! Success!
So the packaging, which is actually my favorite part of the entire gift [what can I say? I LOVE packaging]. I did not make the labels myself. The ones for the hot cocoa jar were borrowed labels from the Paper Source website and sized them down a bit so they’d fit and printed from my own computer. Illegal? Not really [right?] since it was for personal use only and I totally credited them when people asked. But there was no way I was going to spend the money on buying labels that were $5 for a pack of 8 labels [the circle ones were $5 for a pack of 6!]. I mean really? The only one I actually made [thanks to Excel] was the tag for the front of the bag that was inspired by another one from Paper Source.
But I am quite pleased with how everything turned out. And yes, I was called Martha Stewart but that’s okay. It was completely worth it. And now I can relax until next year.