'Tis the Season for Gift Giving

Every year we send out more than 100 Christmas gifts to clients and friends. Each year I try to be creative. The last few years I've taken to sending them Zola Nuts. (If you're into nut recipes, you'll find one of my best Zola nut recipes on line at http://www.dinnerwithzola.com/recipe.php?recipeId=00000077. It's free, of course, so check it out. If you're on a low-carb diet or don't want to eat the usual snack mix that everyone makes by the ton this time of year, you'll love these nuts. They take all the carbs out and keep the flavor of the traditional mix in. People rave about them. (That's recipe #1 for this issue.)

This year's gift is once again going to be nuts. I'm making up a Southwestern Chipotle version with pecans and cashews as the featured nuts. I'll keep you posted on how well it turns out.

One of the fun elements of this gift giving is figuring out what the packaging is going to be. This year I went a new direction and found these really cute little "paint" cans. They look just like the cans you'd buy a quart of paint in. I'm having special labels printed up that will feature "Zola's Nuts," and then we're giving the clients an opener for prying the can open. The opener will be something they'll want to keep. That's my latest whiz-bang idea.

But now, let's go back in time. Before Zola nuts, one year I decided to send out candy-coated pretzel logs. You've probably seen them in specialty candy stores. They seemed like a no-brainer to me and they look really cool. Coated with white chocolate, milk or dark chocolate and then rolled in all kinds of different jimmies and chopped nuts, they made a really fun looking gift. I decided each client would get 12 of the pretzels in a long box. Kind of like pretzel pencils.

Then I went into Production Mode.

Believe me, I used every inch of my huge kitchen. I had pretzels cooling on waxed paper everywhere! I made them, let them set up, packaged them and then the team at our company shipped them all over the world. Toward the end, I realized I didn't make enough. We had more gifts to send out so I had to go into Production Mode AGAIN. I was not looking forward to it! After several days of pretzel production, I was getting more than a little tired and didn't care if I ever saw a pretzel log again. I just sort of went into a zone and got back into making candy-coated pretzels, but I was quickly approaching Grinch Mode.

When I "woke up" from my pretzel-making stupor, I realized I had lost count and made too many! I had already shipped 2500+ but there I was on December 23 with 400 pretzels and no one to eat them. What was a girl to do?

I got smart (and got OUT of Grinch Mode really fast). Early on December 24, I recruited my husband to take the extra 400 pretzels to a local homeless shelter. I knew they'd be making a holiday meal there, and I figured, "What's one more dessert?" These would probably be something the shelter had never served before.

My husband loaded up the disposable trays and set off for the shelter. I was too tired to even ride along and I still had a mess to clean up. When he got back he was laughing. He told me I should have seen the faces on the workers at the site. They were so thrilled to see those pretzels show up. What an unexpected treat!

I still visualize the shelter clients chomping on their pretzels when Christmas rolled around. Now I never forgot to make "too many" and also to donate cash. It makes my Christmas worth everything.

Here's my pretzel recipe. It's not a recipe exactly. It's more of a set of production hints because you don't really need to MAKE anything. You just need to buy the ingredients, heat up your double boiler and crush your peanuts and you are in business.

I promised you fun and easy things for Christmas treats. The palmiers were one. This is another. You can even do this with children. If they aren't old enough to dip the pretzels, they are probably old enough to roll them! Neatness counts for points, but even the ugly ones are edible and everyone will have a great time.

Candy Coated Pretzels

Ingredients:
Pretzel logs (the ones that are about 12 inches long)
White chocolate, milk chocolate or even dark chocolate, melted (You'll need enough melted chocolate to fill at least the bottom 3 inches in your double boiler.)
Sprinkles, jimmies and chopped nuts (Nonpariels, chocolate ants, that sort of thing. You choose.)

Process:

Melt one kind of chocolate at a time in the top of a double boiler. Take the chocolate off of the flame and tip the bowl so you can coat at least one half of your pretzel log by twisting it in the chocolate. You can roll almost the whole pretzel if you want to. The only part that won't be coated is where you are holding the pretzel. Be careful you don't burn yourself on hot, melted chocolate. Let the excess drip off. Have your dipping ingredients each lined up on waxed paper so you can roll the pretzel in the coating when it comes out of the warm chocolate. Choose one dipping ingredient for each pretzel and roll it so the dipping ingredient catches onto the chocolate. Then transfer your pretzel to a clean sheet of waxed paper. You'll need plenty of waxed paper for this project, depending on how many pretzels you want to make.

If you're not making too many, you can set your coated pretzel logs on cookie sheets covered in the waxed paper and transfer them to your refrigerator to set up fast. (Or in my case, because I live in the northern U.S., I can transfer them on sheets to my garage, which in the winter is as cold as my refrigerator.) They will set up just fine on your counter too, but in room temperature setting up takes longer--maybe even several hours. After they're set up, gently peel each pretzel off the waxed paper. You can put these out on a pretty tray for a simple dessert at Christmas time or substitute them for Christmas cookies.

When I packaged them for clients, I mixed up all three flavors (four of each kind of chocolate) and varied the toppings on each so they got a nice variety. They are very colorful, fairly sturdy and always enjoyed by all.

Cheers!