Gourmet Gift of the Day Blog

When my sister and her husband moved into their first home last summer, I wanted to give them a lasting gift that would be useful and meaningful.  I found the perfect thing for them - this personalized ceramic letter holder filled with gourmet cookies.

The house-shaped letter holder is perfect for depositing their daily mail, especially since they work opposite shifts and don’t get much time to communicate with each other during the week.  My sister said she also leaves notes to her husband about appointments, dinner plans, or phone messages for him.  They both loved the cookies, I liked that I was able to choose what flavors to send - I chose 3 of her favorites (Oatmeal Raisin) and 3 of his favorites (Macadamia Nut).  The personalized holder and 6 gourmet cookies were only $54, and since I have ordered from Gourmet Cookie Bouquets before, I knew they would arrive exactly as shown online and would taste just as good (or better) than if I would have baked them myself!

A software developer and a real estate agent seem like unlikely candidates for creating handcrafted gourmet cheese, but that is exactly what happened in 2005.  Brothers-in-law Tim Welsh and Pat Ford traded in their fast-paced lifestyles to churn milk into award-winning, artisan style cheeses.

In the past three years, Beehive Cheese Co. has won a number of awards - including the top three places at the American Cheese Society Competition in the summer of 2008.  The Beehive Cheese Company has also won best of state in their home state of Utah, and has been featured on The Food Network.  Very few cheese companies in the country still produce all of their cheese by hand, but the Beehive Cheese Company is one of them.

We decided to try their most popular product online, the Box-O-Cheese for $55.  We were sent a sampling of their top-selling cheeses:

• Barely Buzzed - Espresso and Lavender Rubbed - This cheese is extremely complex, hand-rubbed with a blend of coffee and lavender buds, then aged on Blue Spruce racks so the cheese is infused with a variety of unique flavors.
• Promontory Cheddar - Aged for at least 8 months, this cheese is created with whole Jersey cow’s milk and leaves a sharp taste in your mouth.  We loved this cheese with pasta.
• Promontory Smoked with English Walnut Shells and Apples - Here, the Promontory Cheddar is smoked with walnut shells and apple slices, giving it a smoky fall flavor.
• Uintah Jack - This jack cheese is named after the town that the Beehive Cheese Company calls home, and is aged at least 12 months to create a snappy addition to your favorite Mexican dish.  We loved it in Chicken Quesadillas.
• Promontory with Habanero - This cheese was my husband’s favorite.  The cheddar is infused with habanero flakes, making it a hot and spicy treat.
• Squeaky Bee Curds - The boys loved these cheese curds, they were a perfect after-school snack!
• Squeaky Bee Curds with Flavor - We received the Habanero curds (selections include Habanero, Rosemary, Cajun and Dill), so they were left for my husband, who enjoyed them with crackers and a tall glass of milk.

After trying this cheese sampler, we have found it hard to go back to standard grocery store cheeses.  Our tastes became accustomed to these high quality selections, so we will be ordering this sampler box again - and very soon!

My former boss was a tea fanatic!  She wasn’t English, but she still believed in tea time every afternoon.  We had a stockpile of tea packets in the breakroom, and she was always recommending some type of tea for whatever our mood was - whether we were stressed, tired, sick or just having a bad day.  She believed in the healing properties of tea, but I think it was more the soothing afternoon routine that calmed her mood.

I wish I would have found this English Tea Sampler when I still worked with her.  This teacup-shaped basket, filled with 126 assorted teabags would have been the perfect gift!  The price is right at $50, and ground shipping is only $8.95.

Impress your significant other by preparing them a Parisian-inspired gourmet lamb dinner - featuring a juicy, tender lamb shank glazed with rosemary & mint sauce, and served with a side of creamy spinach & artichokes.  You can also choose the remaining parts of your four-course meal - including a bread, soup, dessert and a beverage (either coffee or tea).  They will never have to know that you didn’t spend hours making this yourself - the entire meal can be ready to eat in 30 short minutes!

For $89.95, Gourmet Station will help you create the perfect gourmet meal, will include floating candles to highlight your table, after dinner mints, even tips on the perfect wine to accompany your dinner.  I have saved this website to my favorites, and very carefully instructed my husband on the details of ordering so the next time we have a “date night” and it is his turn to cook, he will know what to get for dinner!  The choices and combinations on this website sound exquisite, and I can’t wait to try their Margarita Cheesecake.

The meal choices range from Parisian to Cajun to Americana, and you can mix and match with their simple ordering grid.  Shipping is a very reasonable $19.99, and the gourmet blog associated with this webpage offers great dinner party tips.

With the start of the new NBA season last week, I thought of my cousin Adam who doesn’t miss a single Lakers game.  He can’t afford season tickets, but makes it to at least 10 games a year, and the rest he watches on TV.  When the game is on he tunes everything else out - the phone, the doorbell, his girlfriend, I doubt if he would even move if his house was on fire!

Adam and I will often send each other gifts during the year, just little “thinking of you” trinkets because we were very close as kids and now our busy lives don’t give us much time to spend together.  I had not sent him anything since his birthday this spring, so I went searching for an item to commemmorate his favorite time of year - basketball season!  I found this cute basketball candy bouquet for $43 and $9.95 shipping.

For a tart and tangy kick to your chicken, marinate it in this grilling sauce from Hot Sauce World.  With a great mix of lime and jalapeno, I use this marinade mostly on chicken but have also tried it on beef, pork and shrimp.  Not only do we use this sauce for grilling, I have also marinated chicken wings overnight and baked them in the oven for tasty football-game munchies!

This sauce adds a jolt of flavor without adding heat - which is sometimes hard to do.  The lime flavor creates a whole new pork chop, and my friend has created a great Tequila Lime Chicken with this tasty sauce!  A 12 ounce bottle is only $5.79.

My grandpa is a diabetic so it’s sometimes hard to find treats that fall within his dietary guidelines.  Luckily I was able to find this fun pumpkin planter filled with sugar-free treats for his autumn birthday.  He loved the apple chips and sugar-free jelly beans, and the cute scarecrow and pumpkin are now a great centerpiece on his kitchen table.

The gift included toasted wheat crackers, apple chips, sugar-free Jelly Belly jelly beans, sugar-free wafer cookie, sugar-free chocolate bar and some sugar-free hard candies.  I was able to get all of this for $37 plus $8.95 for shipping.

My family heritage is mainly German on my father’s side, which may explain why I adore German Chocolate Cake so much.  Either that, or I’m just a sucker for chocolate!  In any case the German Chocolate Cake available from the Chocolate Bakery is absolutely decadent.  Fresh, moist and delicious, with creamy chocolate buttercreme, coconut and toasted pecans, it was very hard for me to share this cake with my family!  Luckily the 7″ cake serves 6-10 guests so I had plenty for myself and my boys.

The price of $59.99 includes 2nd day air shipping, or you can upgrade to overnight delivery for an additional $9.95.  I would definitely order this cake again for a dinner party or special occasion, or add a custom message to the cake and ship it directly to my aunt (who loves German Chocolate Cake even more than I do) for a special birthday treat.

A baby’s baptism or christening is a memorable occasion, and many people like to mark the day with a favor for their invited guests.  Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets offers a variety of baptism/christening favors - both personalized and not.  One of my favorites is the personalized chocolate bars like the one pictured below:

Available in 2 sizes (standard size chocolate bar or king size bar), the personalization of your child’s name and baptism date makes this a unique favor.  And chocolate is always a great gift idea, especially to celebrate such a sweet occasion!  With the option to purchase the wrapper and silver foil separately (you can supply the chocolate yourself), the cost is very reasonable and shipping is minimal.

I will be the first to admit that my cooking skills are a little “hit or miss”.  I have to be in the right mood to cook, and even then the food doesn’t always cooperate with me.  So to still be able to serve a great meal on the nights that I would consider a “miss”, I signed up for the Twelve Month Dinner Sampler from Home Bistro.  We have only received the first 2 month’s meals so far, but I have been very pleased!  Each month centers around a different theme (poultry, pasta, seafood, New England, etc) and contains 8-10 generous servings of a gourmet meal that’s ready to heat and eat.  The first month we recieved 4 different poultry dishes, the second month had 5 of the Chef’s Favorite dishes, and next month we can expect 4 beef dishes.  We are billed $88 per month (plus $19.95 S&H), so for less than the price of eating at a gourmet restaurant we can enjoy gourmet quality meals in the comfort of our home!