Arlene’s Sweet and Salty Homemade Christmas Gifts!

Welcome to the gift center of the “At Home” program. Today we’re talking gifts, things that we can make from the kitchen. But before we get started with that, I want to give you some suggestions from — for some very special gifts from very special people that I know that make this program possible, and that’s our sponsors. May I offer some suggestions? Foodland has a complete — a really great way of sending a gift certificate you could put on your credit card or whatever. In the brochure that you’re going to be getting when you send for today’s recipes, we’re going to include all the information, 800 number, get a gift certificate from Foodland, $15 and up. They’ll even mail it for you. Great idea. Then my friend Judy McCurdy [assumed spelling], who has Hair Designs by Judy, how about a gift certificate from her shop for a perm or for maybe $25 amount, or whatever. A gift certificate from Judy McCurdy’s Hair Designs would be a great idea. We’ll give the information on how you can get in touch with her. How about these favorite people of mine that always do such a great job? This is the Jordan Banana Co in Dravosburg, PA. Is this a beautiful fruit basket? Let me turn this around. Look at this, every kind of first-class fruit. I mean, these grapes are gorgeous, the pears, the — everything. And they do them up fine, but they need your order early, because they are slumped at this time of year. And then our great friends at Wholey’s Balcony Cookware; you can go down there, talk to Carolyn. I’m going to tell you, you want a mixer, they have a mixer that I use and everybody in this place wants to have one like that. And there are a couple of girls that will even tell you, “Hey, guys, don’t forget, this is what I want for Christmas,” because it’s so handy. Seriously, they’ve got a great selection at the Balcony Cookware, and there’s every price range of items, from a big mixer to a small mixer, to whatever you need. These are just some suggestions. I feel at this time of the year these people have been good to us on “At Home” all year long, because they sponsor us. They keep us in the fresh fruits and vegetables, in the groceries. Keep my hair looking nice — and I think it does; and other things. So I want to take this time just to suggest that maybe you would like to call them and set up something for a gift for someone that’s very special to you. Well, besides those kinds of gifts, these gifts today that we’re going to be preparing are from the kitchen full of love and from our heart. We’ll be back to get started in just a minute.

Here’s today’s “At Home” hint. “To dress up a jar for gift giving, cut out six-inch squares of Christmas fabric and center a square on top of a lidded jar. Screw on the band and the fabric will gather into a ruffle.” If you’ve got a helpful hint that you want to share with us, we would like to hear from you. Send your hint to, “At Home Hints”, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499.

Well, here we are. Roll those sleeves up because we’ve got lots to do. Follow me closely. Remember, all these recipes are in the book that we’re going to offer at the end of the program. I’m going to be talking fast. We’re going to do a lot of things here today. This particular one, it’s called “ranch oyster crackers”. It’s great to give us a treat. It’s great to put a little [inaudible] jar, put a bow. We’re going to show some of those things at the end of the program. It’s just one box of oyster crackers, all right? And what we’re going to add here is a package of the ranch style dry dressing. This is the original formula, not the new fangled ones or whatever, but just the original formula. Put that in a bowl. Have your oven set at 300 degrees because we’re going to bake these in the oven for a little while. We’ve got some lemon pepper we’re going to add there. We’ve got some dill weed, one of my favorites; garlic powder, all right? Then we’re going to take our whip. And it’s one cup of salad oil. And we’re going to mix that all around. Now, if you want to vary the different flavors, I think you could add different spices if you liked it. Mix it up really well. And honestly, this is so easy, I’m almost ashamed to tell you. But it tastes so good because this is one of those like snacks that everybody really enjoys. You just pour this over the crackers; right? Let’s scrape it out to make sure we get all the goodies. And we’re going to mix this up really, really well. Have your cookie sheet ready, standing by because once you coat these very good — very well, all over, coat them really, really well, this adds this little bit of green fleck to it. And I’ll tell you what, this is a snack anybody would like to have because this keeps — spread them out in your cookie sheet. This is going to go into an oven, 300-degree oven, for about — let me see, 20 minutes I believe it is; 15 to 20 minutes. But what you want to do is spread them out evenly. All right, all over, spread them out, spread them out. And we’re going to pop those in the oven. I’m going to tell you, this is a great gift for someone who enjoys different and unusual snacks. We’re going to set our timer 15 to 20. What do we say, if it’s in-between, I will settle for 18, all right? Next thing that we’re going to prepare is called “rocky road –” sorry, “holiday sugared nuts”. I’ve got so many pans going in the fire today, I hardly remember what we’re doing. Let me see, and make sure something over here isn’t getting too hot. All right, what we’ve done is taken one egg white and one teaspoon of water, [Blender whirrs] and we’ve beaten that stiff — steeply — stiffly beaten egg white. Now we’re going to add — this is sugar, plain old sugar. We’re going to start to add that and keep beating it. And we also have some cinnamon and some nutmeg. I would say about a half a teaspoon of each, all right; have a teaspoon of each. And this is about half a cup of sugar. Now, you’re going to notice that the egg whites are going to get stiffer and stiffer. And this doesn’t look like it’s going to make a lot, but honest, it does. This is something that’s so delicious, because this is also a great gift. This is nice to give the mailman, or how about the guy that gets the mail for you when you’re on vacation? How about the paperboy? How about a neighbor who has been really nice; looked after the house when you were away? How about the little boy down the street who comes up and cuts the grass or shovels the walks for you; something like that. [Blender whirring stops] These are the kinds of gifts from the heart that people enjoy most, because you put a part of yourself in them. Now, after you’ve done — got that — to that consistency, you’re going to take one cup of walnuts, cup of cashews, one cup of pecans. Easy enough. And you just have to mix this until these are well-coated. By that I mean that egg white, that stiffly beating egg white that has the sugar in it now, has to be totally covering those nuts. Because again, what you’re going to do with this is put this in a 250-degree oven, a slow, slow oven, but it’s going to be for one hour. And in that one hour, you have to every 15 minutes — set your timer 15 minutes, and when it rings, go and stir them up. And then set it for another 15 minutes and go and stir them up, because they have to get crisp on all sides. This is what we do. Once you’re at this point, you just pour them into the cookie sheet. I tell you, these are quick and easy. You could take one evening and make enough gifts from the kitchen for a whole lot of people; because these are all super easy. And you want to flatten them out as much as possible, and even separate them as much as possible. Now, what you’ll find is some of this egg white will stick to the pan as it’s baking. But when you’re turning them, take a spatula and go under there as much as you can and turn them over. This is very easy. And tasty. Oh. Especially if your family likes and enjoys nuts. I mean, some families are just going nuts. I mean, they enjoy them so much they’re nuts about nuts. But this is something I know that it would be great for a gift, or even great for your family to enjoy. Honest, that’s all there is to it. There’s not another thing. Goes in for one hour total time, but every 15 minutes keep turning it; 250 degrees. Now, let’s talk about — it’s called “Christmas rocky road fudge”. What I’ve done we have — we’ve taken a can of sweetened condensed milk — not evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and one package of semisweet chocolate bits, put them in a pan and let them melt. This is what it looks like when it’s melting. All right? Now, you have one package of marshmallows, these tiny little baby marshmallows; one package. And you’re going to take two cups of dry roasted peanuts. That’s the kind not with the oil but the ones that are dry. When you touch them, they feel very dry. You’re going to combine them together. Mix them up. Have a glass — I like to do this as a gift. I buy a new 13 by nine baking — glass baking dish, like this, and if you’re not giving as — the dish as a gift, you would line this with wax paper and then pour this in. But I like to give the dish as a gift; as part of the gift. They can eat the goodies out of it, but they also have a nice baking dish. You can do that with a loaf bread; whatever. Anyway, then you’re going to pour this chocolate over the marshmallows and the peanuts. Now, let me caution you, don’t melt the chocolate and leave it on the heat because I’ll tell you what, if you get chocolate too hot, it will wad up in a ball. And you will not have it liquid enough that you can’t — see chocolate’s funny, it has to be tempered. And if you leave it on the heat too long, sometimes you do that and not even realize it because the phone rings, or the kids need to come in, or the dog’s out biting the neighbor or something, well those things you don’t want that to happen and leave that on. If you go out, you must, you absolutely must turn the electric off or turn the gas off under your pan, move the pan off the burner. Don’t go out and leave it there. Because it’s really important to practice good safety rules. Now, let’s see, we have to mix this. And this sometimes is the hardest part. Wish you could smell it. Smells so good. And it’s difficult because that chocolate wants to wad up, but you keep working with it, it will get mixed. It will get mixed. The best time to do it is once you melt that chocolate, that’s when you use it, when it’s nice and creamy. This is waiting to begin the program. That chocolate got a little stiffer because it’s starting to set up, you see. I went back and tried to heat it. It will be all right, but it’s better to use it the first time. When it gets liquid, when it’s melted, use it immediately. All of these recipes will be in our booklet, our very special Christmas booklet that we’ve put together that has all the recipes from the last couple of weeks, this week. And of course next week it’s very special because that’s Christmas week. And even we included the recipes for a special New Year’s Day dinner. So I know that when it comes time to tell you that information at the end of the program, you want to be sure to have a pencil and paper to take that information down. Well, we’ve got them mixed up pretty good. We’re going to pour this into our pan. Now, remember, if you don’t want this dish to go, you would have this lined with wax paper. It’s very important that you remember that. Okay? And then basically all you do is just spread it out. Spread it to the corners. You could use milk chocolate, you could use — this is semisweet. The milk chocolate makes up a very nice rocky road. This is such an easy, easy gift idea for the neighbor next door. How about for the mother-in-law that really likes chocolate, and just doesn’t make it anymore because maybe she lives alone or whatever; or maybe you have some niece or nephew that just kind of — like we’ve got a guy here where we are at home and he is absolutely a chocoholic. This guy could eat chocolate first thing in the morning. Now, I’m not advocating that, but there are people that like that. They would love this. This is the type of thing — put wax paper over this, put this in the refrigerator, and let it chill. It’s really important for you to do that. When it comes time to give it, put a clear piece of plastic wrap, nice big bow, little gift card, you’re ready to go. Well, we’ve done our nuts. We’ve done our rocky road fudge. We’ve done our oyster — ranch oyster crackers. The next thing we want to do is a gift bread, some kind of a bread. I like Christmas breads. I think it’s always nice to have a banana bread or a nut bread, those types; a date nut bread. This is a quick pineapple and nut bread. Very easy to do. First of all, we’re going to take our butter, which is a fourth of a cup; third of a cup of sugar. Need my trusty mixer here. I’ll tell you, if you’re looking for a gift idea, you can’t afford the large KitchenAid mixer, your wife would love one of these, Mister; I know. come on, ladies, tell them, “This is what I want.” [Blender whirrs] This is such a good little mixer, so much more power than the other little tiny — nobody’s paying me to say this. I’m just telling you what I endorse, because this is a great little appliance. We’re going to cream the sugar and the butter. Now, I believe in affirming what I believe in. And if I use something that I like, I’ll tell you. And if I use something and I don’t like it, I’ll tell you that, too, because I just feel that I have a right to do that. Okay, we’re going to cream this together.

And it has — it should come out real nice and smooth. Meanwhile, before you start, you need to have a loaf pan very heavily greased with Crisco or some shortening or butter; either one. [Blender whirring stops] And it’s important to do that because you’re going to want to get that bread out of that pan. And if you don’t do that, believe me, it’s not coming out easily. Okay? Now, that the butter is flying over the place and I’m losing it, I’m going to go ahead and add my two eggs. [Egg cracks] There’s one. [Egg cracks] There’s two. All right. And [Blender whirrs] I’m going to mix that together very, very well. You could have added the sugar a little bit by little to the butter to make it fluffy. If you’re in a hurry like I am kind of today so I can get to all of these things, then you can do it this way. It will work out the same way. Just need to make sure that everything is incorporated together. Let me talk a little bit about freezing cookies and how you do that. If there’s a cookie that is a crisp cookie, that gets frozen in an airtight container. Don’t mix moist cookies with crisp cookies. The moisture from the moist cookie will go into your crisp cookie and make it soggy. So you don’t mix cookies in tins or in bags that you’re freezing. Keep them separate. Sometimes if you have an almond flavor, it will touch all the other cookies and flavor them with almonds. And you don’t want that. You want every cookie to have its individual flavor. You need to wrap them as airtight as you possibly can if you’re freezing. And when you bring them out of the freezer, don’t open them up and let the air get to them because they will dry out. Leave them completely wrapped and let them come to room temperature. And you will find that you will have a nice, moist, kind of fresh-tasting cookie. Really important to do that. All right, and we’re going to — we have our eggs in here, our sugar, and our butter. [Blender whirring stops] Now we’re going to take two cups of Bisquick. That’s that baking mix. We’re going to add that. Also going to add about a half a teaspoon of salt. We’re going to take about a cup of chopped walnuts or any other kind of nut that you’d like. If you like pecans, do pecans. And one cup — get this, of crushed pineapple. This makes this such a refreshing — because sometimes in the holidays, everything’s chocolate. Everything’s nuts, everything has an icing, everything has — well this is so refreshing because this is a very fruity taste, and really quite a delicious taste. And now all you’re going to do is just mix this up. And you just fold it in; stirring it. That pineapple has such a nice flavor, such a nice smell. And it kind of — like I said, it is a relief not to have the chocolate, and the nuts, and the icings, and all of that. This is just a nice — it’s a quick bread because it doesn’t — you don’t have yeast and all that stuff in it. It’s a quick bread. Using that baking mix, the Bisquick, too, really helps because you can get done — you can do it quicker when you — because they have already added a lot of the things that you would need a bread like this to that baking mix. So when I’m in a hurry, I don’t have a problem using something like that to help me do my job better and quicker. Now we’re going to take — we take our — I’m going to get my scraper. And I want — you don’t have to keep mixing this until it’s like a smooth batter. You don’t really need to do that. You’re never going to have a smooth batter, one, because you’ve got pineapple and walnuts in there. But you just want to mix it until it’s totally mixed together. Then we’re going to pour this into our pan. All right? Boy, that sounds like this is a great presentation. And I’m pouring it into a pan and it’s working. Hallelujah. [Laughs] It really is. Don’t you love Christmas music? Tell you, when I started hearing music like that, makes my heart rejoice to think of the celebration of this wonderful season that we know of as “Christmas”. But more than that, it’s the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Does my heart good to know that the world all over celebrates the birth of our King, the One that we serve. All right, we’re going to take this and we’re going to put this in a 350-degree oven for 45 minutes. Now, don’t automatically say, “Well, 45 minutes is up. It’s done. Bring it out,” because you know what will happen probably, it will fall. You take a toothpick. Don’t put it this end, don’t put it this end. Put it right in the center, the highest, thickest part. And if it comes out clean — there are no little bits of batter on it, there’s no morsels of any, it’s clean, then it’s finished. If it comes out wet like there are little bits of batter, go another two or three minutes. Keep setting your timer. Don’t say, “Oh, I’ll remember it,” because it will be burned if you do it like that. You don’t do that. Do two or three minutes and you test it. And you keep testing it until it comes out clean. Take it out. Cool it on a wire rack. Go around the edge of the pan. Loosen it. Really important to do that. Take your knife. Go around the whole edge of the pan. Start at the edge and just start lifting until this loosens up. Then start this way lifting until it loosens up. Then you tilt it out onto a cooling rack. Push it back over so that the top is up, the bottom is on the bottom, and let it cool until it’s really cool. You can wrap it at that point and put it in the freezer, or you can wrap it and give it as a gift. But this bakes for about 45 to 50 minutes, all right? Well, we’re moving right along. Let’s see, that’s four different gift ideas that we’ve given. You know, one of the things we have to remember is that the cookies that we’ve baked for the last couple of weeks can be a very, very welcomed gift. Believe me when I tell you that people who used to bake and cook and no longer can because they’re impaired — maybe they’re shut-ins, maybe they just can’t get around anymore, boy, do they enjoy those home-baked cookies from someone just like you. Well, let’s go for another idea for a gift. This is unusual. This is different. No baking, no cookie, just a real fast, quick gift idea. What I have here is this — these are whole-pitted dates. They come in a box. You can get eight-ounce or you can get the pound box. But I just have a few left because I’ve already done some that we’re going to show you at the end of the program. These are whole dates that have the pit taken out. And I have some slivered almonds here, as you can see. I have some pecans. You could use walnuts, whole almonds, whatever; really any kind of nuts that you wanted to use. And I’ve got some sugar. I also have some cream cheese, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, that I have watered down or softened down with a little couple of tablespoons of milk. The way you do that, put a chunk of cream cheese in a bowl, put the milk there, and just keep beating it, and beating it, and beating it until it gets very, very soft. Then you can use it in your cake decorator tube or a pastry bag; either one. I have an open star tip on the end here. And all you’re going to do is take your date and look for the hole where they took the pit out. Insert the tube, and then just squeeze. Lookie there, you’ve got cream cheese stuffed in that date. Roll it in sugar. And this makes a great gift. It really does. You can do — if you didn’t want to do the cream cheese, take some of the almonds and just stuff them in that date wherever — see you’ll get the other end here where the pit’s out. There we go. You can stuff a couple of slivered almonds in that same hole. This is a real treat for people who enjoy dates. Some people really like them, some people hate them. I think they’re very good for you. This you don’t cook. You don’t do anything. You just stuff them, and then roll them. And you have it completely finished. And look how impressive. Put that in a little card box, maybe a piece of plastic in the bottom. Wrap the box; the lid of the box. Put a bow on it. People think, “Boy, I wonder what’s in here.” Let me caution you, if you use anything like cream cheese or if you give a gift that needs to be refrigerated in any way, it’s very, very important for you to include that on the gift label outside that says, “Please refrigerate me.” If you go into the house and the hostess or the host, the one you’re giving the gift to is so excited they put the box down and forget it, it’s your job to make sure it gets to the refrigerator because you don’t want to ruin the gift, and they will be thankful for it. Well, we’ll be back to show you everything that we’ve made today in just a minute. Stay tuned. Here’s how you can get all of these holiday recipes in one booklet. Here’s how you can do it.

To receive your special Christmas recipe packet 175, containing all of this month’s holiday recipes, listen very carefully. Just send a self-addressed business-sized double-stamped envelope — yes, that’s two stamps with a dollar or more, to At Home 175, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499. You will only need to write once this month to receive all our Christmas recipes from “At Home”. And have a blessed holiday.

Well, I have to show you, this is the bounty from three weeks that we’ve been bringing you programs. I want to show you. Let’s take a little journey. Here are our ranch oyster crackers, our sugared walnuts, and cashews, and pecans. There’s the pineapple nut gift bread. Isn’t it beautiful? Our ice cream nut rolls. Next to that the praline bars. Here are the laced cookies. And how about those stuffed dates? Don’t they look great? Keep refrigerated. Here are our cookies that were — our butter cookies; rolled butter cookies. On the top layer here are the almond finger cookies and our orange cookies. Yummer. They smell so good. In the center, then, we go to — this is our crisp sugar cookie, light, and flaky, and delicious. Next to it, the gift of the rocky road fudge. This makes a wonderful gift suggestion, and it is easy as can be. Your kids can make that for Grandma. Well, I just want to tell you that all of these recipes are included in the booklet. All you need to do is ask for recipe number 175, and send it to At Home, 175, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Now, it’s really, really important for you to send a great big number ten envelope, just like this with your name and address on it. And please, you must include a dollar or more; two dollars, three dollars, five dollars, to help us. Because we have printed these and put this booklet together. If you are ordering for today’s recipes, you’ll get the whole month’s supply, all five Christmas and — four Christmas and one New Year’s Day holiday. So be sure to join us next time, because it just won’t be the same without you because it’s going to be Christmas brunch. We’ll see you then.

Fresh produce provided by Jordan Banana, wholesalers of fresh food and vegetables in Dravosburg, PA. Cookware provided by Wholey’s. Your favorite gourmet deserves the best for less from Wholey Balcony Cookware. Groceries provided by Foodland, where the answer is always yes.