Gourmet Gift of the Day Blog

This is a fun treat that everyone is sure to love!  A giant rice krispie bar (12 1/2″ by 16″) is enrobed in white chocolate, decorated with your choice of colorful sprinkles, then cleverly covered with an edible sheet of your favorite image.  The image shown below is almost too cute to eat!  Everyone I know loves rice krispie bars, and they taste even better when covered in chocolate!  This would be a great treat for an end of the year school party (with a photo of the class on the sheet), a retirement party or a family thank you gift.

Cookie Gift Baskets makes it very easy to order this item.  Simply place your order and then email the image to their service department once you receive their emailed receipt.  The image will be reproduced exactly as you send it, so I recommend that you send them a high-resolution image that has already been cropped.  The rice krispie bar sells for $45, and can be shipped for as little as $9.95.

One of my favorite television shows is “Top Chef” on the Bravo network.  The head judge, Tom Colicchio, claims that “everything tastes better with bacon” and I tend to agree with him.  For example, I adore sea scallops – but wrap them in bacon and it’s like a little taste of heaven!  Which is why this appetizer is perfect for our upcoming New Year’s party.

Each year the neighbors in our cul-de-sac get together for a New Year’s Eve party.  Most of us have small children and none of us want to be on the dangerous winter roads that night, so we gather at someone’s home for appetizers and cocktails.  The kids have fun watching a movie or playing board games, and the adults don’t have to worry about finding a babysitter or driving home after having a few drinks.  This year I predict my bacon-wrapped scallops are going to be a huge hit!  Appetizerstogo.com sells 100 pieces for $111.69, which is a bit more than I would normally spend but I am going to keep some for a special Valentine’s Day dinner for just myself and my husband.  Shipping is a very reasonable $13.95, and if I were to order 3 items shipping would be free.

Popcorn is one of our family’s favorite snacks – even my 2 year old asks for it when we have movie night.  I like to experiment with different flavors but the boys prefer to stick with their favorite – cheese popcorn.

While searching online for unique popcorn flavors, I found this nostalgic Santa tin filled with dark chocolate cherry popcorn and double chocolate popcorn.  The popcorn is made fresh daily, and it is so good that even Al Roker has recommended it on his TV show – Roker on the Road.  The 1 gallon tin retails for $25 and can still arrive in time for Christmas.  You may have to upgrade shipping, but Holiday Gifts & Gift Baskets will give you delivery dates and costs before you get to the checkout page.

For some reason I am not a fan of candy canes, but I love Peppermint Patties.  Maybe it is the dark chocolate surrounding the mint patty that makes it taste better to me, but in any case we always have mints around for the holidays.  This year, my sister is watching her sugar intake because of a predisposition to diabetes so I found her some “amazingly delicious” sugar-free peppermint patties!

I have baked with Splenda a number of times, and my family has a hard time telling the difference between Splenda cookies and cookies baked with sugar.  Because of that, I was certain that these mints would have a great taste as well.  I had never heard of Maltitol before (which is also used in these candies), but after doing a bit of research I discovered that Maltitol is a sugar alcohol that is nearly as sweet as table sugar but does not have as much of an effect on blood glucose.

My sister received these mints just yesterday, and she called me immediately after sampling them because they were so delicious!  She loved the presentation in a red gift tin, and said that she couldn’t tell they were sugar-free.  The patties are thinner than a York Peppermint Pattie, but my sister liked them better because they were not quite as “minty”.  I paid $19.99 for a 9.8 oz tin, plus $9.99 for shipping.

This reindeer doesn’t need Santa to deliver the goodies because he carries them himself.  I ordered this hand-crafted wooden reindeer because he fits perfectly with the decorating theme in our family room – and the cookies are so tasty!  When ordering, Gourmet Cookie Bouquets lets you choose from 6 varieties, and this time I ordered all pecan caramel cookies – thinking that I would get them all to myself.  Well of course I was wrong, when the boys discovered what had arrived yesterday they each had a cookie for dessert – and one before bedtime!

It’s nice to know that we can still get cookies that taste like homemade, even if I don’t have time to bake them.  These cookies are moist, delicious and HUGE – each one is about 5″ across.  The reindeer makes a great keepsake item also, it would be very easy to personalize by writing on the sides of the reindeer.  If you order today, you can still ship via UPS Ground for delivery before Christmas – the reindeer with 6 jumbo cookies is $51.

After seeing this snack featured on the Food Network Program “Unwrapped”, I had to order some for myself.  I was skeptical at first, but after tasting one of these chocolate-covered potato chips I wanted to buy stock in the company!  I was amazed at how crispy the potato chips were, and at how well the saltiness of the chips blends with the sweetness of the milk chocolate coating.

It was very neat to watch how these snacks were made.  The Food Network showed how the potato chips are first sent through an automatic chip sorter, so only the perfect-sized potato chips make it to the coating machine.  The chips are then coated with milk chocolate on both sides, and take a ride on a vibrating conveyer belt that shakes off the excess chocolate.  Finally, the chips are measured and carefully poured into a bag to avoid breakage, then each bag is tied and placed into the tin by hand!  And talk about excellent customer service – after I placed my order I wanted to add an item to it, so I called the customer service number and was greeted by a friendly customer service representative who not only made the changes for me, but provided me with a new total and delivery date – all in less than a minute!

A 12 ounce tin of these chocolate-covered goodies sells for $10, and shipping is $8.50.  I recommend buying more than one tin because my tin disappeared in minutes!  I have since given the nostalgic tin to my mom (who collects tins like this) and I have ordered 3 more for myself and my boys.

Living in Minnesota, my family is used to snow.  But I have a few cousins that live in the southwest and they have never had a snowfight, never built a snowman, or never had a “White Christmas”.  Although this morning the windchill is near zero degrees where I live, I still feel sorry for my faraway cousins that celebrate the holidays in shorts and t-shirts, so each year I find a snow-themed holiday gift for them.

This year I have sent them Frosty’s Favorites Gift Tub offered by All About Gifts & Baskets.  I have sent so many gifts throughout the year from this website that I was able to order this gift and only pay for shipping!  The item sells for $59, but buy using my Frequent Buyer’s Club points all I paid was $10.95 to have it shipped to New Mexico.  My cousins have a small collection of snowman items, so this 12″ stuffed snowman and painted snowman tub will be a perfect match for them!  The tub also has some tasty goodies inside:

• popcorn
• pretzels
• peanuts
• cookies
• chocolate
• hot cocoa

If you are attending a holiday dinner party this season, present the hostess with a unique and useful gift.  This oil and vinegar gift set includes gourmet imported olive oil and balsamic vinegar paired with a grape-themed cruet.  When the oil and vinegar are poured into the cruet, they create an infused presentation that is both decorative and functional.

Cruets.com offers this item on sale for $59.95 plus shipping.  They will also gift wrap your item for $4.25 more.  The set includes 8.5 oz of Italian Masserrie di Sant’Eramo olive oil, 8.5 oz of Italian Masserrie di Sant’Eramo balsamic vinegar and a European crystal hand-blown glass cruet.

Ho! Ho! Ho!  Say Merry Christmas in the sweetest way possible this year – send Santa and his reindeer directly to your loved ones!  These fun cookies look almost too good to eat, but no one will be able to resist their sweet, buttercreme flavor.  Cookie Gift Baskets seems to specialize in unique and colorful cookie arrangements, and I have never been disappointed in the 10+ orders I have placed with them.  Not once have I received a broken cookie, and everyone I have sent my gifts to has raved about the fresh flavor and asked for the website information.  I am always happy to share my find with them, and my sister-in-law called just the other day looking for information so she could send some Christmas cookies to her nieces in North Carolina.  After browsing the website, I emailed this gift information to my sister-in-law, and even offered to place the order for her (that way I could get more frequent buyer club points for myself).  She fell in love with this item, and ended up ordering 2 arrangements – one for her nieces and one for her best friend’s family!

The 9-cookie arrangement sells for $63, and which will get you 7 reindeer (including Rudolph), Santa, and a center cookie where you can write a personal message.  Ground shipping is $9.95, but if you don’t have time for ground you can upgrade to 2nd Day or Overnight Air.

My uncle Lyle loves microbrews.  He spends a lot of his vacation time searching out microbreweries that produce uncommonly flavored, but very tasty beer.  During his journeys, he has found coffee-flavored beer, chocolate-flavored beer, and even jalapeno-flavored beer.  He doesn’t have a favorite microbrew, I think he enjoys the challenge more than the conquest.  I’m hoping that I have found some more unique flavors to add to my uncle’s conquest list.  Beergifts.com offers a number of beer gift baskets, beer glasses and beer boxes, including this Microbrew Gift Basket.  The basket includes chips and salsa, gourmet nuts, cheese sticks, party snack mix, and an assortment of 6 domestic microbrews.  This sampler basket sells for $75 plus $14.95 for ground shipping.

Beer cannot be shipped to GA, KY, MD, MA, OK, TN and UT because of state restrictions.  if you choose to order a beer gift, make sure that you ship to an address where someone over 21 is available to sign because the shipper cannot leave alcohol without a signature.