I love gifts.  Giving, receiving, shopping for and making them, it doesn’t matter.  Outside of Christmas and birthdays, getting a gift makes you feel loved and appreciated and has the ability to brighten a bad day instantaneously.  For me, giving gifts is even better because I’m the one who gets to make someone else’s day!

The best gift in the world?  Easy….food. (You had to know that one was coming!)  Seriously, how could anything beat the gift of food?  After all, diamonds may last forever but twinkies will outlast a nuclear holocaust.  Food fulfills all the requirements for the perfect gift: it’s handmade, thoughtful and easily customized for each intended recipient.  It’s part of our culture to bake or cook for any major event or life change.  Anniversary dinners, a box of chocolates for a breakup and mourning dishes –these are all examples of the ways in which we use food to recognize important life events.

So why do we give food as a gift? Well, because it sustains us and our relationships with each other, physically, socially, emotionally and culturally. But more specifically, it is often a practical offering or tangible notice of something major happening.  When families lose someone they love, it is custom to give them a casserole or some other dish.  While there is often nothing we can do to help them emotionally during this time, we can help to ease their minds over what to make for dinner.  Conversely and strangely relatedly, when a baby is born, we want to acknowledge and share in the joy of the new parents. Giving them food lets them know we’re thinking about them, while allowing them to begin to set up their routine without having to worry about putting together the next meal. These types of practices have been in place for many centuries, as can be seen from the Jewish tradition of food gifting for Purim and the Chinese New Year tradition of giving blessed or lucky foods to friends.

By this time in my life, I’ve got my equation figured out for which life event warrants what type of food.  Gift of choice for a new job or promotion? Definitely flavored specialty bread.  An engagement notice? Needs a cake. A pregnancy? Definitely a batch of cupcakes. Now, if I have to bribe someone….cookies. Finally, for that special time when you need to bring a hostess gift or send a chic thank you present, I send whole vanilla beans.  They’re pretty, fragrant and elegant. What more could you possibly want?

As you can see, food makes our social worlds go round. So what recipes do you use when you are gifting family or friends?

Thanks to MarcinMoga, SlamEye and Melanie_Hughes for the photos!

~Laura

I made a chocolate cream pie today.  There was no particular reason, except that I had a lot on my mind and I’ve always found that when my mind is too full the best way to organize and calm those thoughts is to occupy my hands.  What better way to occupy those hands than to make something delicious?

I perused through recipes searching for the one I wanted to make (which turned out to be this one, although I used bittersweet chocolate instead of semi-sweet) and my thoughts turned from home and work matters to the easy and comfortable topic of food.

As I measured out the ingredients I would need for my chocolate cream pie, I thought about some of the things I’ve read on some of my favorite food blogs recently.  I’ve noticed that there has been a lot of emphasis on going back to the basics, using quality ingredients and enjoying the simple things.  SmittenKitchen made a great observation about the beauty of simplicity done well when she said, “great chefs make you wonder why you’ve wasting so much time with gimmicky sea salts and foie anything when you could be eating a perfect bowl of spaghetti.”

As I chopped my Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate into fine little shards and watched as my cream and cornstarch mixture began to bubble cheerily over the burner, I thought about how this applies to so much more than spaghetti.  Why complicate things so much when wonderful simple food is so possible?  What is the point of food and eating anyway?

Well, for me, food and eating intersect in two very important ways:

1) Eat right. Since the old adage about “you are what you eat” makes me think I should be eating a rich, beautiful, intelligent, successful person, I prefer to think about giving my body what it needs to get through the day.  This includes not only a good balance of different foods, but making sure that what I eat is actually food.  So many foods, whether prepackaged, frozen or fast foods, are loaded down with chemicals and “food substitutes”.  Um…gross.  I’ll stick with real food, thanks.

2) Tastes good.  A lot of people I know who have the “food as fuel” mentality forego the taste element and think of eating only as a way to maintain certain levels of vitamins and nutrients in the body.  I, on the other hand, think that being healthy and eating can be a pleasure.  Food is beautiful and eating is enjoyable. Luckily there are other people who share this same idea!
Back with the pie, as I measured in some Rodelle vanilla extract with my chocolate and butter and folded that mixture in with my thickened cream, cornstarch and egg yolks, I watched the off-white and brown colors swirl and combine and I wondered: where does this chocolate cream pie fit into my mindset about food?

My conclusion? Part of eating right is being able to eat dessert every once in awhile.  I believe in using quality ingredients, like my Ghirardelli chocolate and my Rodelle pure vanilla extract.  This not only qualifies it as “real food” but it also makes it taste fantastic. Even something as simple as chocolate cream pie, when made with good ingredients, becomes special and beautiful.

Later, as I sat down to savor a piece, I still hadn’t figured out all the answers to everything work and home that had led me to baking in the first place.  But hey, I had pie! Right now, that’s enough.

How does good food help calm your mind?

~Laura

In the midst of the pink and red paper hearts of Valentine’s Day, I didn’t get the chance to write about another holiday that fell on February 14^th: Chinese New Year!

I really didn’t know much about the Chinese New Year, except that I was born in the Year of the Rat.  It turns out that there are twelve animals that represent the twelve different years in the cyclical Chinese calendar and, much like the Zodiac signs, each of those animals have specific traits that are said to be characteristic of the people born under those signs.  February 14, 2010, marks the beginning of the Year of the Tiger.  Even for those of us who are not tigers, the Chinese New Year can be a time of new beginnings and reaffirmation.  One way to this better life?  Through food, of course!

According to tradition, eating certain foods will bring luck in different areas of your life.  While I believe in making your own luck, I certainly wasn’t going to overlook this opportunity to get a little extra help!  Call me greedy, but there were so many good things on the list of food symbolism, that I had to stretch my Chinese New Years feast over several meals.

According to Chinese tradition, chicken represents “family togetherness” and “joy,” two things that I highly value. For that reason, I made Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms and Cream (or Supremes de Volaille aux Champignons) a la Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Even though I don’t eat meat, my husband does and I figured that if I make it and he eats it, we’re covering all of our bases, right?

It turned out beautifully:

To compliment the “family togetherness” facet, I made these coconut cookies, since coconut stands for “unity” in the Chinese New Year.  They were delicious.

The next element that I wanted to take advantage of was “longevity.”  No one ever knows how long they have on this earth, but if all it takes to add a few days is eating some uncut pasta, count me in!  I made angel hair spaghetti with tomato cream sauce from this recipe, although I substituted Smitten Kitchen’s marinara sauce for the canned marinara called for in the recipe.  This substitution called for using an onion and it just so happens that eating an onion is supposed to help “cleverness.”  I’m happy to have snuck that one in there!  While the end result was not quite as beautiful as the chicken, it sure tasted great.

Since I was now assured a long life with my family by my side, the next day I figured I would take advantage of just a few more of the Chinese New Year foods by making this Orange Whipped Cream Cake. Oranges represent wealth (hey, couldn’t hurt, right?) and sweets in general mean “safety” and “good fortune.”  While the wealth is more specific, I hope that the good fortune crosses-over into many areas of life, like work and hobbies.  At the very least, it crossed over into the culinary area of my life because this cake was mouthwatering.  Light and airy without too much orange, I highly suggest it for a light dessert.

I was a little sad that I couldn’t find any references to the symbolic nature of my favorite ingredient, vanilla, for the Chinese New Year.  Then I decided, why should I let that stop me?  Since I wasn’t necessarily cooking Asian cuisine, but rather trying out a few recipes for good fortune, I decided to make fortune cookies. Even though fortune cookies aren’t actually a Chinese tradition, I like that they afforded me the opportunity to write down my own hopes for this year and, in a sense, create my own luck!  Plus, they were fun, yummy AND I got to use some Rodelle pure vanilla extract in the recipe!

Have you found a Chinese food recipe using vanilla that you could share? Or tried any of these recipes?

We’d love to hear your tales!

Laura

One day several ages ago, I borrowed from my dear mom a few past issues of Cooking Light. I was in search of recipes that prompted an urge to immediately flee to the kitchen, grab a skillet, and start cooking. That is how I stumbled upon reductions.

I had never heard of a reduction, although unbeknownst to me, I’d enjoyed many a reduction throughout my life. Yes, gravies, syrups, glazes – these are all reductions made from the process of thickening a sauce by boiling it at medium to high heat. As the liquid evaporates, the flavors of the native liquid intensify in flavor. It’s the single easiest way to turn any mundane brownie and ice cream dessert into a ridiculous festival of chocolate, vanilla, wine and bliss. As I found out not so long ago!

My first reduction – and a subsequent go-to (I still have the original recipe found in the Cooking Light magazine I swiped from my mom) – was a variation of chicken piccata with an intense lemon and stock reduction that turns any mediocre breast fillet of pan sautéed chicken into a lip smacking, memorable occasion.

I can thank chemistry for the flavor orgasm that occurs in reductions, particularly those that are cooked in a skillet that was used to cook the meat atop which the reduction will happily go. As meat juices (amino acids) mingle with stock and, in the case of chicken piccata, lemon juice (reducing sugars), a little thing called the Maillard Reaction happens during the heating process. During this reaction hundreds of flavor compounds are created – a boon for the girl with a limited spice rack.

The same girl (ok, I confess – it’s me) had a party the other night with her posse of mountain bike girlfriends and became fantastically pleased with herself when she realized she could turn an ordinary but heavenly brownie into a fit of ecstasy by merely creating a vanilla infused wine reduction that could be drizzled over oven warm brownies and real vanilla ice cream.

My online search for vanilla and wine reductions landed me on this simple recipe that I modified slightly (no fresh fruit on hand – but real vanilla bean, yes). I started with a Spanish Grenache bottled by Borgia. As a wine for drinking, Grenache is light and fruity so I knew it would be a decent choice for my first attempt at a dessert reduction. After adding the wine, sugar, vanilla seed and peppercorns to my wide saucepan (the more surface heating area, the better), I made a ‘story stick’ out of a plastic spoon because I was super excited to try this reduction technique I read about in Cooks Illustrated. The pros at CI recommend a chopstick or other wooden implement, but I went with what I had on hand and used a knife to etch my starting and half-way marks on the long end of my spoon.

After 20 minutes, my story stick indicated that the wine had reduced to half, but it didn’t seem thick enough. Then I read the recipe instructions again and learned I was to reduce the 750 ml of liquid to ‘about one cup’. I left the concoction to boil away and turned my attention to other pressing items: putting the finishing touches on some truffles, welcoming guests, sending numerous text messages, lighting candles, and eating appetizers. The aroma from the reducing liquid filled the house with a pungent and mysterious odor.

By the time I returned to my reduction, it was fiercely boiling (yikes!) and its liquid fluidity had been replaced with a caramel-like thickness that made me gasp in horror. I had over-reduced my reduction! Cripes almighty. I wasn’t sure how the reduction would perform or taste, but I poured the gooey mass into a cup to cool in the fridge (which only made it thicker – I later tried thawing the mass in a water bath). Of course, I had to lick my finger to taste the now super-reduced wine sauce-come-viscous-caramel-goo. Deeee-lish.

OK, while I committed a significant cooking foul by not keeping my eye on the ball during this critical cooking process, the result was an intensely delicious, albeit hyper-thick, reduction that wasn’t the syrup I was meant to prepare. But, it sure made a great brownie and ice cream topping that had my guests smacking their lips. (Note: the next day I thinned the reduction with a tablespoon or so of water and the syrup-like consistency I was aiming for came to life).

What was the last reduction you made and enjoyed with friends?

Carol

Although single and without kids, I have an affinity for small children. I can relate to their needs (I require play time, too), I can usually act more goofy than they can (I have scared the occasional child with my zeal for dancing), and I have a fantastic repertoire of silly voices. So it should come as no surprise that given the choice to exercise myself to extreme pain at the gym last Saturday morning or bake cookies with my friends’ two daughters – Chloe, 7, and Becca, 5 – I opted for the latter.

I love baking cookies with kids, especially kids that are not my own, and especially in advance of a holiday – like Valentine’s Day. Their eyes sparkle with the anticipation of sneaking a taste of batter and decorating cookie tops with insane amounts of colored sugar.

I also find that kids love working with holiday-specific cookie cutters. This time of year they have no qualms about dipping into the Christmas cookie cutter collection because there are only so many heart-shaped cookies you can make. And, bless their little munchkin souls, they even forgive you when you realize you can’t make frosting because you forgot to buy powdered sugar. You simply agree to let them have not one but two cookies before lunch (in addition to the giant one you let them set aside for dessert after lunch) and everyone is happy again.

Like most children finding themselves in the kitchen with a grown-up, Chloe and Becca were eager to help prepare the batter for the cookies we set out to make. The recipe: Rodelle’s Rolled Sugar Cookies. In a stroke of brilliance, I let Chloe measure out the flour and sift it into a small bowl while Becca and I set out to cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. Each kid needed her own sense of empowerment and this strategy worked like a charm. Of course, I had to let Chloe take a turn with the hand mixer while Becca tried out the sifter. Then, they each took a turn with the hand mixer as we added flour to the wet ingredients. Becca let me know at least four times during this process how much she likes cookie batter. I mean, she really likes it. Can I blame her?

Once we put the dough into the fridge for a brief cooling period, the girls came somewhat unglued with the prospect of checking out my stuff, running around the house dressed in my scarves, and parking themselves on the bathroom counter as they painted their small faces scary pink with my ‘make-up stick’. I did what any smart adult would do: the dishes.

After this interlude of fashion and frolic came to its sad but eventual end, we got to work rolling out dough and cutting cookies. I was clever a second time to avoid possible sibling disquietude by cutting a line down the rolled dough to designate their private dough property. Of course, I then learned again how much Becca loves cookie dough (by now she had managed to casually sneak about a pint of dough into her wee mouth). I also learned what Chloe and Becca love most about Valentine’s Day: the color pink. Not love. Not chocolate. Not even cookies. Pink.

As their little hands plied dough away from the heart-shaped cutters and we talked about how much we loved dough and couldn’t wait to eat a fresh out-of-the-oven cookie, I knew with certainty that Valentine’s Day was just a lovely excuse to spend a morning in the kitchen with little girls who would one day discover their own joy for baking with friends.

I hope your own adventures in baking include small children and their valentine, as well as a great story. Just wondering – how much cookie dough can your kids eat?

Dreaming of cookies,

Carol

For two years I’ve been adamant about learning how to make the perfect pie crust. A savory girl, I like to make pie dough more for quiche than pie (although this Thanksgiving I discovered chocolate pecan pie). Still, my crusts aren’t elegant in form and they’re not exactly ‘flaky’. My dough typically rolls out OK, but it seems kind of stiff. I’ve experimented with things like vegan butter (oxymoron, I know) and organic vegetable shortening. Let’s just say, it’s been a process.

If you’ve ever embarked on a similar journey, you’re familiar with the range of certainty and opinion the baking world holds for how to combine flour, fat and water to create the perfect crust. The pie world has three main camps: those that use shortening; those that use butter; and, those that use both. After trial and error, this decision is now easy for me. I want something that comes from a cow, not a can; and though something called leaf lard sounds interesting, I can’t readily source it.

The issue is which ingredient creates a flakier crust. I believe the quality of flaky (insert your favorite self-deprecating joke here) is in the making of the dough. Some swear by food processors and others keep it real with a pastry cutter (blender). I didn’t have an opinion on this technical point, so I set out this week to see which dough turns out better – one made with electricity, or one made with muscle. Up until now I’ve been favoring muscle with both a pastry cutter and a knife, which Chez Pim makes look ridiculously easy (but it’s not).

I also thought I’d round out the experiment by trying two different butter techniques: cubing refrigerated butter v. grating frozen butter. I had done neither – just sliced it up into big squares. Lastly, I also found this crust that calls for almond flour (wouldn’t you know, I bought some to use and then proceeded to forget I bought it) and this gluten-free crust that sounds amazing except I’d need to take a second mortgage out on my home to afford the five different kinds of flour it requires (I willed Will Ferrell showing up with ‘flours’ like he did in Stranger Than Fiction, but no dice). So here’s what I did….

Pie Dough 1 – Cubed butter, pastry cutter (blender)
I love this method, which I learned from Smitten Kitchen. Of all the online dissertations I found for making the perfect crust, Deb’s Pie Crust 102 shed important and somewhat life changing light on What Could Be. Cubing is a snap with my pastry knife and the pastry cutter makes everything come together quickly. Clean up is easy. I refrigerated the crust for 90 minutes, rolled it out (following these directions), and ended up with a lovely looking pie shell that I put back in the fridge a few more hours. Keeping the dough, especially the butter, chilled is perhaps the most important element in making a flaky crust.

Pie Dough 2 – Grated butter, food processor
I do not love this method. Grating the butter by hand added an element of heat that concerned me, and all those butter shavings were a mess (by the way, even though grated butter looks like a creamy Parmesan cheese, sadly, it still tastes like butter). After combining the flour and butter in the food processor, pulsing it briefly and drizzling in ice cold water, I still had to remove the dough and mix it by hand in a bowl. The dough was easier to work with at this point because the butter had warmed up, but overall, this method took me longer than the pastry cutter. Back in the fridge for more chilling.

And then…

I made a pie! I adapted this Scandinavian Sour Cream Apple Pie recipe by using real Rodelle vanilla bean, not quite a full cup of sour cream, and placing Pie Dough 2 on top, instead of the streusel-like topping the recipe calls for. I have never understood how to make a crust look good until I read about tucking the excess dough under. Duh. That, and cubing butter, were hands down the greatest take-aways from my experiment.

But was it flaky?

You know, this just wasn’t my goal. I believe in butter, I believe in the hand-mixing technique, I believe in keeping the dough cold. I just believed that flaky would be the natural outcome of my dough. I had friends over last night to taste my pie and when my girlfriend asked, “How do you get your crust so flaky?” I just smiled. Ever been there? Do tell. I’d love to know your obsession with making the perfect pie crust.

Mixing it up with glee,

Carol

The holidays are over. Christmas, Hanukkah and the New Year have all come and gone.  Even though the relatives and the festive air may have dissipated, there are some aspects that stick around for awhile longer, such as the effects of weeks of excessive and rich food.  I know that when my body is out of whack, it seems absolutely nothing is the way it should be.  Even if “getting healthy” or “losing weight” isn’t one of your resolutions for 2010 (and if it is, you’re in good company), getting your body back into pre-holiday condition (or better) can help you all the way around.  Is there anyone that doesn’t feel better about life when they’ve been eating healthily?  But I see absolutely no reason why healthy food can’t still taste amazing, and with that in mind, I’ve compiled these recipes and tips for making one of my favorite “healthy” foods: Smoothies.

Sometimes I find it difficult to get in the daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables and smoothies can be a convenient (and delicious) way to squeeze them into my diet.  A good, wholesome smoothie is not simply a non-alcoholic version of a daiquiri or margarita (anyone else have a few of those over the holidays?), but uses much better and satisfying ingredients.

I absolutely love smoothies and drink several each week.  Of course, having a good blender is essential to making a good smoothie.  I invested in a good Bella Cucina drink blender that mixes the fruit right into a plastic cup.  I just stick in a straw and go!  It was definitely a good buy.

Also, knowing that I’ll need them later, I bag and freeze my favorite seasonal fruits throughout the year.  This works especially well with berries, which act like ice cubes when blending and eliminates the need to add any other ice.   Even without this foresight, frozen fruit is easily found in the freezer section of any grocery store.  In particular, I like the Dole blend of mixed tropical frozen fruit.  I try to avoid using canned fruit, though, as they often sit in heavy syrup that never tastes good and has a lot of sugar and preservatives.

There are some crazy smoothie recipes around, but my favorite combinations are made from just plain fruit and fruit juice.

Here’s one that I use all the time:

1 to 1 ½ cups of frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries and fresh or frozen peaches

2/3 cup fruit juice (this can be a fruit cocktail, apple, orange or any other type of fruit juice you like)

¼ – ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Throw all ingredients into a blender and mix until smooth.

Because of how rich and flavorful berries can be, the lighter tone of the peaches and apple juice I like to put in helps to balance it out.  Occasionally, I’ll also throw in a fresh banana.  Don’t worry if the banana is a little on the green side; adding vanilla to the mixture gets rid of that starchy-taste and helps bring out the mature, ripe flavor.  Also, if the smoothie is a little too thick, add more fruit juice to thin out the consistency.  If you’re someone with a real sweet-tooth, you can add a bit of sugar or your favorite substitute (I’m a Splenda girl myself, although I’m interested in this new stevia that’s been getting a lot of hype…I’ll have to look into it a little bit more) to almost any smoothie recipe to get it just where you want it.

One of the best parts about smoothies is that they’re so easily modified.  If I have a taste for mango, I just throw some in.  Or, if I have fruit, like melon, that is ripening in my fruit bowl I can use it up in a smoothie.  I try to be adventurous and test new combinations; they don’t always work out quite the way I plan (avocado and cantelope, anyone?), but you never know what strange mishmash you might fall in love with!

If you get tired of the all-fruit feel, try changing the juice base.  One recent trick I’ve been using is to substitute the fruit juice with green tea.  Green tea is unbelievably good for you and has a wonderful light taste that is a great complement to fruit.  Or, if you want something that feels more substantial, try a plain yogurt base; it adds a smoother texture to the smoothie that gives it a different consistency.

I believe that there is no reason why getting my body back on track can’t be delicious.  I also see no reason why the Super Bowl has to derail this plan. So, I have a secret goal of sneaking my husband and his buddies healthier options this year, instead of the typical beer and chips.  With any luck, they’ll be too wrapped up in the game to notice that these dip recipes are actually light and that they’re being served with a veggie tray instead of those chips that leave grease trails on napkins and jeans.  I figure that regardless of who loses the game, I’ll secretly be winning at life if I manage to fill my guests up on yummy food that’s not a calorific nightmare.

What is the best smoothie combination you have ever had? I’d love to try it!

Laura

Welcome to 2010!  Even though we’ve all said goodbye to 2009 and the great things the year brought, Rodelle Vanilla is not letting nostalgia get in the way of ringing in this new decade!  Not even giving the New Year’s champagne a chance to go flat, Rodelle Vanilla has made sure they are moving forward by getting ready for this year’s Fancy Food Show.

The Fancy Food Show is an annual event that showcases specialty foods and beverages and has over 250,000 different products in attendance. The Fancy Food Show gives it’s attendees a chance to visit various booths and learn about new or rare products and companies.  This is the 35^th Winter Fancy Food Show to date and some of these shows have had upwards of 24,000 people in attendance!  This year it is going to be at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from January 17-19.

Although people enrolled have the option of running free through the show and exploring on their own, I know that I would be completely overwhelmed and wouldn’t know where to turn first.  A budding foodist like me would need guidance through the amazing array of specialty foods being publicized.  That’s why the Fancy Food Show has educational programs available!   I, for example, would love to learn the language of specialty foods, or sample some miso and natto (two great new food products coming over from Japan).  The Specialty Food Retailers of San Francisco Tour sounds like it would not only be informative, but super interesting.  And, of course, the Chocoholic’s Tour of San Francisco sounds as though it was planned just for me!  What could be better than getting the chance to visit several different chocolateers, go backstage at a confectioner’s and sample some amazing chocolate?  I imagine that going on this tour would leave me feeling as amazed and awestruck as Charlie Bucket.

Despite my dreams, the Fancy Food Show is only for people who are in the specialty food industry.  Think of it as a big food related conference where participants get to see the latest trends, check out the newest products and keep up to date on all of the specialty food gossip.  There’s no telling what new creations could take place when two experts with great products cross paths.

I admit, I’m a little sad I won’t get to go on the Chocoholic’s Tour of San Fransisco, so maybe I’ll just have to settle for indulging in Rodelle’s new origin specific dutch processed Ivory Coast Gourmet Baking Cocoa (although it’s not much of a sacrifice….to be honest, it’s just plain pampering myself!).  I am glad, though, that there are programs like the Fancy Food Show that help keep Rodelle and other specialty sellers at the top of their game.  After all, even if we don’t get to go, we’re still the ones who are ultimately reaping the benefits from this type of (yummy) collaboration!

Thanks to Optical Illusion, h-bomb and Rodelle Vanilla for the great pictures!

Laura

With the coming of fall, the smell of vanilla fills the air.  Summer time is perfect for those light citrus scents like orange or mango, but the cold air of fall and winter demand something deeper and richer and vanilla fills that role perfectly!  Did you know that vanilla is the most common scent around?  From beauty products to household air fresheners, the fragrance of vanilla is everywhere!

I, for one, am quite happy to be surrounded by vanilla.  Just looking around my apartment, I know that I am pushing the vanilla agenda!  I have a great Yankee candle (almost burnt out now) on the kitchen counter which emanates a great vanilla scent throughout my apartment. Then there’s my Crest Vanilla toothpaste in my bathroom!

With the holidays approaching though, my mind has shifted to thinking of gifts for my friends and family.  Luckily, I know I can’t be the only vanilla lover and it seems like the safest and best scent to give.  Besides  the great Rodelle vanilla gifts available from Cost Plus World Market, I’ve been keeping my eyes open and I’ve seen some wonderful products you might want to check out for your closest afficionados!  There is a beautiful Black Vanilla Leave-In Conditioner from Carol’s Daughter (a natural company) and Graham Webb has a Vanilla Plum Fortifying Conditioner.  For skincare, there are vanilla lotions and vanilla lip balm.

Somehow, though, even though I know these are great products made by good companies, it doesn’t feel like enough.  I also want to do a green Christmas this year and add a homemade touch.  A few years ago, my best friend made a series of bath salts with different scents.  I loved mine and quickly used that up and I think that was a really neat idea.  That’s why I was so excited to find out that there are a ton of easy recipes for homemade making vanilla candles, vanilla perfume, vanilla bath salts, vanilla lotion, vanilla shampoo and conditioners and even vanilla lip balm!  I’ll be making some of these over the next few weeks and I’ll let you know how they work out!

Vanilla: A scent made for giving! What are some ways you all are personalizing your holiday gifts this year?

Thanks to AngelSK and kendiala for the pictures!

Laura

Happy Holidays! Rodelle Vanilla will be giving away an ECO-FRIENDLY HOLIDAY BAKING GIFT SET to our Facebook fan who submits the best holiday drink recipe and gets the most support from their friends.

THE GIFT SET WILL INCLUDE

• Rodelle Vanilla Beans
• Rodelle Vanilla Sugar
• Rodelle Gourmet Baking Cocoa
• Rodelle Gourmet Vanilla Extract – 8 oz.
• Rodelle Organic Vanilla Extract – 4 oz.
• Rodelle Vanilla Extract Gift Set – flavors from around the world
• Eco-Pie Plate – Pure by Chantal
• Bamboo measuring spoons
• Oversized copper snowflake cookie cutter

** Valued at over $80! **

RUNNER-UP GIFT: Rodelle Vanilla Beans & Gourmet Baking Cocoa

Contest dates: 11.13.09 – 11.30.09

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS

1. Create your own recipe for a tasty holiday drink using one or more of the following: vanilla, vanilla beans, or cocoa.  Your drink recipe can be for a warm drink on a cold day, an adult cocktail or a kid’s holiday drink.

2. Post the recipe on Rodelle Vanilla’s Facebook fan page wall. Feel free to include a personal story or upload a picture or video of you enjoying or creating your drink.

3. Get your friends and family to support your recipe by ‘liking’ your recipe or making a comment on your recipe about why you should win.  How do you do this? “Share” the Rodelle fan page with your friends and ask them to vote for you. Remind them that they’ll have to become a Rodelle fan in order to vote. And, offer to bake them something tasty once you win!

Click here to get started!

THE WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN BY RODELLE VANILLA & BASED ON:

1. The amount of support from your friends and family, so spread the word!

2 .The quality of the recipe so spread the word!

3. Creativity of the post
The Rodelle fan with the second-best recipe and friend support will receive the Runner-up Gift

This is a fantastic gift set for the environmentally-friendly baker from Rodelle Vanilla. Rodelle’s facility is wind powered and portion of their profits go to promote biodiversity and improve farmer livelihood in vanilla growing regions. For this gift set, Rodelle choose environmentally friendly baking supplies such as bamboo measuring spoons and eco-friendly pottery (free of coloring agents that reduce environmental impact by up to 50%). If you win, your recipe may be used on the Rodelle website’s Holiday Recipes page!

** Rodelle Vanilla reserves the right to disqualify and/or remove any entries that are not original recipes. We also reserve the right to extend or end the contest at any time.**