Pretty, but expensive - MYO
I was out and about in Mornac-sur-Seudre yesterday, a very pretty village, now a very artistic community on the banks of the river. It has pretty shops and restaurants; you could head out in canoes along the river, or just watch the world go by from a terrace with a glass of pineau.
If you have kids, then be sure to stop in at La Fée Nougatine when they are making bois caissée, a boiled sweet. They’ll be fascinated by the way the sugar goes from transparent and gloopy to opaque and stripy, not to mention a complete change of colour. Yesterday was raspberry so it went from red to pink.
Whilst in there I picked up a great gift, a bag of ingredients for rice pudding. We have a tropical fruits version to look forward to but there were vanilla, chocolate banana, rose even violet versions on offer. Nicely packaged, simple to make when you’re home…just an incredible price really at 6€80. In the old days of 1€50 to the pound it would have been better, but for most people I wouldn’t buy this, I wrote mine off to research.
It is the simplest thing: pudding rice, vanilla sugar and some glace fruits. Which means it would be really simple to put together yourself as a gift. For any event really, but those when the weather is colder would be ideal, when everyone would be craving a little comfort food.
A heavyweight plastic bag (Lakeland bound to have something suitable) and maybe print the recipe onto a label, or hand write it if you’ve got decent handwriting. Go with fancy with the ribbon, or rustic with string. Add in cinnamon sticks and whole nutmegs, mini graters, wooden spoons, miniatures of spirits (sure a Baileys rice pudding would be amazing), anything you fancy really, and you’ve got a great homemade gift for not very much.
Lets face it, with the VAT going up, January is going to feel more bleak than usual so perhaps saving a little on whatever festivities go before, without feeling like you’re scrimping, might not feel like a bad idea.
And you could use this idea with anything that is primarily dry ingredients, like biscuits or hearty soup mixes. You do see these in these in the shops but, like yesterday’s shopping experience, they are very expensive and something that you can easily do it home. It also doesn’t take too much skill or time, and kids would love doing it. Maybe a funnel would be a useful bit of kit to add in!
With things not getting any easier for anyone, then I think homemade is going to be more acceptable than ever, and making it tasty and interesting has to be the way to go. Anyone doing anything interesting?
Santa’s little helpers for your homemade goodies // Oct 17, 2011 at 6:21 am
[...] know I wrote about this last year as well, but it’s a continuing theme. And each year there are more ways to make whatever you [...]