Foody gifts

[wubblybubbly]

We made christmas hampers last year for family and friends and are looking to do the same again this year.

We've decided to do a chilli oil, made with dried chillis (after reading about the botulism scares - don't want to kill anyone ) and want to do a flavoured vinegar to go with it.

Could anyone suggest any good recipes? Maybe something that would taste nice mixed with the chilli oil?

Ooh I'm not sure what would go with chilli oil, but for a hard to beat vinegar, tarragon for me wins hands down.

Wash the tarragon well, then plunge into some good white wine vinegar and steep for a month, before removing stalks.

You could get all flash and attach with fancy ribbon etc a recipe for tarragon mayonnaise made with the vinegar. Its to die for.

Thank you taffeta. Mmm, I love tarragon. Since we're making enough to keep some, that is very tempting indeed.

Brilliant idea about including a mayonnaise receipe too. Thanks

There is a recipe for fig vinegar in Nigella's Christmas book somewhere - tis lush just for dipping bread into on its own.

I made the fig vinegar for my mum a couple of Christmases ago - was very nice!

Fig vinegar sounds good and very christmassy. I think I'll see if I can find the recipe. Thank you

Has anyone made raspberry vinegar before? There are recipes everywhere for it, I've never tried it myself, so I'm not sure.

Nigellas recipe:

1 litre white wine vinegar
250g soft dried figs, chopped fairly fine
75g runny honey
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon white peppercorns

Sterilize a jar big enough to hold the above - approx 2 litres - with a vinegar proof lid. Put the lot in & give a good shake. Steep out of the light for 4 days. Sieve into a large measuring jug. Pour into sterlized bottle & store in a cool dark place.

She says it will look like a strange specimen jar freak show when you do the 4 day steeping but not to let that put you off

Think I'll have a go myself actually - only 4 days steeping is good.

That's brilliant JetLi, thank you. I did a google search and couldn't find it. It sounds delicious

Just popped into Lidl today and found they had figs in, 75p for 250g, so I've bought enough to make 3 litres of fig vinegar!

I think there'll be just enough left over to keep some for ourselves

We did raspberry this summer..thouugh I bet you could use frozen ones at this time of year. FIg does sound good though!

We have also done various chutneys and jams christmas cake etc and will do truffles, choc dipped merangues, orange and walnut shortbread...just got some reduced carrots so will do a carrot and onion marmalade thing I think [skint]

oooh cool about Lidl & the figs. I think I got frozen rasps from them one time when I was it as well. I think I might try a comparison with cider vinegar since its cheaper & comes in bigger bottles. Have you thought about bottles wubbly? Wondering where to get some nice ones from - might try the kitchen section in Dunelm.

I found some lovely bottles online, dirt cheap but the delivery bumped up the price. I think it worked out about £2 each, not bad but more than we wanted to pay.

I know Ikea do reasonably priced swing top bottles, but they're on the larger size.

Last year we saved up all of our old bottles and jars, sterilised them and used those.

We've worked out it's actually cheaper to buy the white wine vinegar/olive oils in small gift size bottles, decant the contents and sterilise those bottles. In fact, it would be cheaper to buy them like this and chuck the contents down the sink, but that would be silly

We'll just make up our own fancy labels and tags, as we did last year.

We might look a bit strange in Sainsburys with a trolley full of mini bottles of extra virgin olive oil mind you.

MoonFace, last year we made mini christmas biscotti, they were so easy, tasted fab and, best of all, keep for a couple of weeks so you can make them in advance!

The recipe is here. I think we'll make them again this year, delicious with a good cup of coffee.

WUbbly that sounds ace! Thanks!

They're lovely MoonFace, make plenty so you've got some to keep!

How are you getting on with your hampers?

I'm just about to bottle up my Christmas Chutney, it's smelling damn good. Should really have been done last weekend, so I hope it's ready in time.