Flavored Butter of the Month Club

I just might be more proud of this gift than any other.  It's not that the gift itself is so wonderful, but the difficulty in determining a gift for its recipients (let alone a homemade one) renders it ingenious.


My dad and my husband's dad: two great, happy, impossible-to-shop-for guys.  They truly don't want anything.  So one day I was torturing myself, trying to think of something - anything - to make for my father-in-law.  In frustration, I said aloud, "I can't make him anything!  All he likes is biking and butter!"  Ah, butter.  The first love of both these fine, frequently carb-cutting men.  Inspiration struck and I started a club.  They will receive twelve fresh batches of different compound butters, one each month.


I started with rosemary butter and it turned out a bit salty, but tasty nonetheless.  Orange butter is next up, but I don't have firm plans after that, so please feel free to share ideas and/or recipes.


I didn't take a picture, but rest assured, the butter was pretty.


Cost: about $24 for butter (I hate paying more than $2/lb) and a negligible amount for rosemary.  I'm not sure how much I'll end up spending on other flavorings, so we'll guess maybe $35 total?

Gifts #13-15: Mother's Day

Devin's grandma whipped out this cool roll/muffin/biscuit-serving device while we were visiting and I thought it would be the perfect thing to recreate for Mother's Day.  So we traced hers onto some paper, marked where all the seams go, and I made three roll holders: for my mom, my mother-in-law, and my grandma.


Once again, I forgot to take pictures along the way.  But now I want one for myself, so when I make mine, I can do a whole tutorial.


Basically, the roll holder (anyone have a better name?) is made of three double-sided fabric circles.  I cut out all the circles from two different fabrics, then matched one blue with one pink and serged them together.  Serging in a circle, by the way, was very scary but not actually that hard.


Then I pinned the bottom two circles together and sewed three seams all the way across:

You can see the seams if you really really try, or just picture cutting a pie into six pieces.

Next I pinned the last circle on top and sewed six seams, each half-way in between the bottom seams.  Does that make sense?  These were only about 1/4 across the circle, and only through the top two layers.  If you think it's hard to understand, try actually doing it.  I had to undo a few stitches that accidentally went through all the layers.

These are easier to see.

Last, I sewed on two snaps, as shown above.  And the finished product:

See how that works?  When you snap it together, 12 little roll-hugging pockets pop up.  Pretty slick.

I didn't get to give my grandma hers in person, but I enjoyed both my mom's and my mother-in-law's puzzled faces when they opened their gifts.  "Oh, how cute... what is it?"

Cost:

2 yards each of two fabrics (with leftover): $14

6 snaps (part of a set at the dollar store): $1

Serger thread (given to me by my grandma just in time and in a perfect corresponding color): $0

Total: $15 or $5 each

Vote: Best Edible Christmas Gift

What was the best edible Christmas gift you gave or received in 2009?

Today my husband baked chocolate chip cookies. Our neighbors gave us a roll of dough for Christmas, ready to slice and bake. This gets my vote! Every house is so loaded with sweets during the holidays, so a gift that you can enjoy on, say, January 12th instead, is a very welcome variation. A few cookies will be savored and appreciated much more on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday than they would be amid the usual holiday parade of candies, chocolates and baked treats.

Canned salsa, jam, and fancy shelf-stable foods also make great enjoy-later gifts, but the cookie dough is my favorite because, well, it turns into chocolate chip cookies. Need I say more?