You Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!

My mom is Jewish and my dad is Catholic, so I was techincally raised Jewish, but I've always celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah...or, as Seth Cohen from The O.C. fondly calls it, Chrismukkah ("the greatest super holiday known to mankind, drawing on the best that Christianity and Judaism have to offer, eight days of presents followed by one day of many presents"). This year has been no different, even though it's in a new home with new people to share the miracle of Chrismukkah with.

So yesterday was the first annual Chrismukkah Cookie Baking Fiesta at the Kocher/DiLiberto/Minnaugh household. This year, that entailed baking three types of cookies (well four if you count two flavors of biscotti), partially decorating our tree, and brewing 2.5 gallons of tea for our next round of homemade kombucha.

I'll post all of the recipes for this year's Chrismukkah cookies, but my far-and-away favorite were the Gingerbread Men (and gingerbread snowmen, and gingerbread Christmas trees). I am really happy with how they turned out, especially because I used my garam masala instead of the recommended ground cloves (whoops, didn't have any!) Also, the inclusions of ground white pepper is a nice touch! I used blackstrap molasses, which made for some very very dark cookies...but they are just as delicious as ever.

Old Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies
adapted from Eat, Live, Run
makes about 4 dozen large man-shaped cookies

ingredients:

3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 T ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground garam masala
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2/3 cup blackstrap molasses
2/3 cup demara sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 egg, slightly beaten

directions:Preheat the oven to 325.

Combine the brown sugar, molasses, ground cloves, white pepper, cinnamon and ginger in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil on the stove for about three minutes, stirring occasionally.
Take pot off the stove and add the baking soda (this is the exciting part!!!). Stir well.
Add the butter, adding only a few chunks at a time and stirring well so each addition melts before the next. Add the egg and stir.
Finally, add the flour and salt. The dough will be very soft and still warm, but roll out on a floured covered surface. Cut with cookie cutters or use a large glass to make regular shaped cookies.

Bake for twelve minutes.

Happy Chrismukkah!

Holiday Gift Giving: Herb Infused Olive Oil

Herb infused olive oil?!! YES! I don't know how I came up with that idea (although, I can probably attribute it to dating an artist and wanting to make something for our families this year) but as soon as it crossed my mind, I knew I absolutely had a winner!

It's a great gift idea because you can tailor-make your olive oil to each person's tastes. Personally, I am a big spicy foods girl, I get that from my dad, so my ideal infused olive oil is going to include hot peppers! Anyway, this is really easy to do and makes a really thoughtful gift, in my opinion.

It's super easy too! All you need is some olive oil bottles (I got a bunch of them at World Market, prices ranged from about $3 to $7, depending on the size), some fresh herbs (the heartier, the better: rosemary, thyme, sage, garlic, maybe even some dried hot peppers!!), and olive oil. I went to Sam's Club and got a gallon of it for approximately $13. 

Oh, and you'll also need a funnel if you don't have one. Trust me, you're gonna want this.

Our method was to fill the olive oil bottle about 3/4 full with oil. Make sure you watch the olive oil entering the bottle AND the oil going into the funnel! You can pour oil into our funnel much fast than it comes out, what we ended up with was olive oil all over the kitchen table. After you semi-fill the bottle, insert your herb, pepper or whatever you're filling the bottles with.[11.30.10 edited to add: make sure anything you put into the olive oil bottles is DRIED. We made that mistake and our fresh rosemary was growing something after about a week. We're not trying to make anyone sick with our gifts...so dry dry dry your herbs and peppers and whatever goes into that oil!] I found that using a chopstick was useful in positioning and inserting the herbs. Then, finish filling the bottle with olive oil and cork it!

I'm planning on sending these to my parents in Hawaii...hopefully that plan doesn't backfire on me. We're going to have to devise some creative ways to make sure the bottles get there safely and intact. I thought about just carrying them with us when we go to visit, but we can't carry them on the airplane...and packing them makes me more nervous than just shipping them.

What's your best homemade gift idea (that you've given or received)?? Also, any ideas on successfully shipping olive oil across the country?