Tis the season for OH MY GOD HOW DID MY HOLIDAY GIFT LIST GROW LONG ENOUGH TO DOUBLE AS A SCARF. Oh wait, is that just me? D’oh.
It’s certainly been a season so far. And by “a season,” I mean it’s been a typical December sh*tstorm of baking, shopping, parties, head colds, crazy winter drivers, and highway exits backed up for miles anywhere within five miles of a mall.
So, let’s take a step back and thank whichever higher power you hold dear for the internet. You know, the mess of wires and anonymous commenters that gives us shopping from home.
Because I love you, I’m going to give you my top-5 list of awesome culinary-based Christmas gifts for 2017. Every single one of these things can be purchased while in the form of a blanket burrito on your couch while binging Netflix. No pants, shoes, or makeup required. Halle-freaking-lujah.
(By the way, these are not affiliate links. They’re just products I think are both useful and awesome.)
1. Fearless Fresh Cooking Cheat Sheets (well, duh!)
It would be silly for me to start this list with anything but my own thing, because I 1000000% built these cheat sheets to help people. I designed Cooking Cheat Sheets for one purpose only: To make you an effortless cook and end dinnertime drama.
Some may say that cooking is an amazing talent, and it is, but everyone can follow a very basic set of rules to get delicious results. You don’t need to walk into a kitchen with talent — you can use these rules to feel like a total badass in the kitchen.
My goal is to get people over that hump of not being confidence enough to cook for themselves. Cooking Cheat Sheets are laminated, easy-to-read cooking guides that walk you through every step of food prep so that it becomes easy, even if you have zero cooking skills. They make a great gift for anyone who struggles with cooking and maintaining a healthy diet!
Price point: $25-50
2. The Fresh20 Meal Plans
If someone you know struggles with feeding their family healthy, delicious meals, imagine giving them the gift of THREE MONTHS of stress-free dinnertimes, for only $24.
The Fresh 20 is a meal planning service that delivers everything you need to shop, organize and cook nutritious weeknight meals for your family, with only 20 ingredients a week. Their recipes are simple and delicious. Everything is fresh and they encourage local and seasonal ingredients when you shop.
Each weekly meal plan includes a weekly shopping list, and that shopping list is categorized with cost estimates and pantry staple reminders. The goal is to get in and out quickly and not spend an hour in the store buying items you don’t need. Then on to cooking, which broken down into simple steps within the meal plan itself.
Meal plan options include:
- Classic, for omnivores with no food allergies
- Vegetarian
- Gluten-free
- Paleo
- Cooking for one
So no matter what sort of lifestyle the people on your gift list live, The Fresh20 has a meal plan system for them.
Price point: $24 for 3 months
3. Flow Planner — Plan your life AND healthy diet in one place
Does someone on your gift list struggle with keeping their daily schedule in order, including getting healthy dinners on the table at the end of the day? My friend Mia Moran has come up with an ingenious idea: The Flow Planner, which helps you map out not only your day schedule, but also your meal planning. All in the same place.
Why is this awesome? Because it’s the first planner that fits food on the same pages as the rest of your life. The Flow Planner allows you to plan your meals alongside your work and family schedules, which saves you time & money, and gets you eating the foods you mean to eat.
Grab your Flow Planner now to get discounted launch pricing!
Price point: $24, which includes the planting of one tree!
4. Modern Cast Iron — Lighter but still awesome
The Field Company makes cast iron skillets that are much lighter than your standard cast iron pans. I don’t know about you, but my current set of cast iron is wonderful… and heavy. When I had my rotator cuff repaired earlier this year, cooking with them was impossible. I wish I’d had a Field Company skillet when I was recovering!
If you know someone who loves cast iron but can’t manage the heft, this might be the perfect holiday gift. (Think: the elderly, the disabled, or anyone who who can’t lift a 7-pound hunk of iron.)
Price point: $100-135
5. The Flavor Bible, or the ultimate guide to flavor mixing and matching
The Flavor Bible (ok, this one is an affiliate link) is the one cookbook I will carry around with me until the day I die, and I may very well write into my will that I want to be buried with it. It’s the only book in my kitchen that I use the most often. By far.
Why do I love The Flavor Bible? Because it’s such a simple idea: it’s just list after list of flavors that go together. So say you want to make an apple pie, but you want to put a special twist on it. You just look up “apples” and see that they go with a bunch of flavors, such as blackberries, ginger, and vanilla. So you add a handful of blackberries to your pie, along with a little grated ginger and a teaspoon of vanilla.
Suddenly your friends and family are begging for your pie recipe, and you get the satisfaction of saying, “Oh, I just threw it together.” ;)
So, if you know anyone who wants to be a more creative cook, or just wants to learn about flavor pairing in general, this book is an INCREDIBLE gift.
Price point: $21
That’s it for the Fearless Fresh 2018 holiday gift guide! I hope these gift ideas are useful — I can tell you from personal experience that every item on this list is handy, and will make someone very happy.