Handmade treats are happily received—and they are great fun to make, too. Invite friends over and set up the supplies for cooking, baking, and packaging, assembly-line fashion.
Start by raiding your canning collection—jams and pickles are always appreciated.
Dried herbs are another great option. You can even create your own special blends (one for fish, another for pork).
Put homemade granola in clear gift bags, seal with a sticker, and pack in a box—here a handsome compostable wooden one that’s lined with colorful tissue—with honey or other favorite toppings. Wrap the box with waxed red-and-white twine.
Or tweak the same packaging for cookies—easy to pull off with freeze-ahead doughs (page 84). Use cupcake liners or cellophane bags to separate cookies.
Wellness
Do quick workouts
Amid the holiday crunch, it’s more important than ever to keep energy up and stress levels down. The solution? Spend just four minutes each day on a Tabata workout. Do any exercise (jumping jacks, burpees, deep-knee lunges, push-ups) at maximum intensity for 20 seconds, rest for 10, then repeat, for eight rounds total. (As when starting any new type of exercise, don’t overdo it, lest you injure yourself.)
IN-SEASON PICKS
Parsnips Early winter is the best time to find these root vegetables—after at least one hard frost, since the cold helps convert the starch to sugar. Commonly served boiled and mashed, they are even sweeter and more flavorful when roasted or sautéed in butter. Buy small or medium parsnips that are blemish-free; refrigerate in the vegetable drawer or a plastic bag for up to two weeks.
Pomegranates Red-purple in color, the pomegranate fruit husk has two parts: an outer, hard pericarp, and an inner, spongy mesocarp, which comprises the fruit’s inner walls and seeds. When choosing pomegranates, look for fruits that are heavy for their size—a sign of juicy seeds inside. Mottled or darkened skin isn’t necessarily bad, but the fruit should be firm to the touch. To remove the seeds, halve the fruit, hold one half cut side down over a bowl, and whack the back of the fruit with a wooden spoon.
