Skip to main content

Elven Idea Factory #2 - Kitchen

3 favorite DIY recipes that make Great Holiday Presents

1. Irish Cream Liqueur (Bailey's) - This makes #1 because it takes the longest to make but is worth the wait. Like a tincture (herbs distilling in alcohol over 3-4 weeks), this creamy and chocolaty gift makes your friends lick their lips at the thought of it. This is an old recipe I've been making since I was in my twenties, and no matter what age group I make it for, it's a hit. The sweet-toothed elves like this one best as well.

Makes about, keeps at least 1 month, and takes 3 weeks to make.
750 ml Irish Whiskey
12 oz milk chocolate
28 oz condensed milk
24 oz evaporated milk
2.5 cups heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Pour 1 oz whiskey and condensed milk into small double broiler, add chocolate and melt, stirring constantly until smooth. Stir in coffee granules and let heat for one minute, then add evaporated milk, stirring constantly, and remove from heat. Stir in cream and the rest of the whiskey.


2. Salsa - Been there, Done That - one of my favorite holiday gifts, my salsa is usually made around August or September, and is therefore the easiest to holiday gift for me to pull off. But it's no simple task in the beginning, and I usually spend two weekends making several batches from the early harvests of peppers, tomatoes, and garlic. Look for that recipe in this previous post.


3. Biscotti - The easiest to make, this biscotti recipe comes from the Joy of Cooking and impresses everyone. Great for the holidays when more people drink coffee or tea to keep up with the pace, I usually make several different kinds to satisfy all tastes. This recipe isn't Gluten Free.

Makes about 3 dozen. preheat oven to 375
Whisk:
3 cups flour
2.5 teaspoons baking powder
.5 teaspoons salt
Beat separately:
.25 cup corn oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon lemon zest
.5 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla

Gradually combine and blend to smooth. Shape dough into 2 smooth 11 x 2 inch logs with lightly floured hands, lay on greased cookie sheet and flatted to 1.5" tall.

Sprinkle with coloring, drizzle with chocolate, or crumble nuts for toppings. Can also leave plain.

Bake for 25 minutes, let cool 2-4 minutes, transfer baked logs to cutting board, and slice diagonally in 3/8" slices. Return to oven and bake 10 more minutes, turn slices over, and bake 5 minutes more. Cool on rack.

There are more great recipes for dipped and flavored biscotti at Biscotti Zone, a personal favorite.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

DIY Bath Salts

A few weeks back I added two posts for making your own face products. Along that same home-factory-idea line is the typical bath salt. I laugh when I see them in the store for $15, when it's often only $1 of Epsom or Sea Salt and a few drops of essential oil, plus $10 of preservatives you DON'T want on your body! I making salt baths more regularly after a car accident several years ago that left my back in a pretty poor state of health. I was taking a pain-bath about 3-4x a week and it helped immensely. Now I take them for all sorts of reasons: relaxation, menstral cramps, headaches, chest colds, aching muscles, and psoriasis flare-ups. The salt is the base to this so let's start there! SALT First, all salts are sea salts either mined as rock or evaporated from the saline solution. Sea salt is sodium chloride, and is used in cooking and cosmetics. "Dead Sea Salt" is proven to have the highest content of body-healing minerals it it, from the Dead Sea. Table s

Gluten-free Sourdough bread adventure

Throughout my decade of being gluten free, I had never heard this before, but recently at a friends house, I heard a rumor that the gluten in bread breaks down in the process of fermentation with sourdough. The study that this rumor has seemingly sprouted from was done on just 15 subjects in Italy. I won't get into how the wheat in the US is far different from the wheat in Europe, but suffice it to say, it's not the same. At first, this rumor was exciting. Could I actually have bread again? I was sure willing to try! So I took a chunk of my friends long-aged sourdough starter, fed it for a few days (that's the fun part!), and made some sourdough bread! Much to my dismay, the answer is no, I can not, but it sure was an exciting thought! I've been GF long enough to know the immediate physical sensations when I'm going to have a reaction, and I don't press my luck. I had a small piece of this DELICIOUS bread and gave it away, knowing full well tha

Gluten Free for Psoriasis

Recently I've been putting my researching brain cells to work on studying the Gluten Free way of life. Since the age of 14 I have had psoriasis, and recently it's been showing signs of progression to psoriatic arthritis, a progression that occurs in about 20-40% of the cases (studies are still incomplete, although the reverse is 80% of PA patients have had psoriasis, so the two are definitely linked). I've been tested for allergies in the 1980s (none), and I'm a pretty natural consumer as well, so I don't use body products with harmful ingredients like parabens or sulfates. Herbal and homeopathic remedies and dead sea salts have all helped reduce my inflammations, but have never eliminated the disorder completely. I was vegetarian for 7 years in the 1990s, and that never cleared up my psoriasis either. Because of its progression I've started researching the diet and how it relates to the disorder, and stumbled upon several articles and studies that now link