Christmas Foodie No. 4: Easy Consumable Gifts Sugar and Spice

These easy consumable gifts are about as simple as food gifts get.

In the foreground, Christmas spice salt, adapted from a recipe in Nigella Christmas.

Christmas Spice Salt

2 cups sea salt
2 tsp peppercorns (I used smoked)
2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp anise seed (or whole star anise)

This blend is pretty and festive and tastes great on roasted meats, or even just as a pretty table salt.

In the background, a container of organic sugar that is starting to be infused with vanilla essence from a vanilla bean that has been split lengthwise and cut into thirds.

Both of these are best if they’re allowed to mature for a month or two, so now is a great time to get these easy consumable gifts thrown together—literally, they both took me less than half an hour—and stick in a cupboard somewhere.  I like to have things like this around for easy hostess gifts. And people tend to appreciate easy consumable gifts that don’t add to the clutter in their homes, but are fun and simple to consume and use up — more like an experience than a thing.

I found all of the ingredients for the salt, except for the smoked peppercorns, which I had, at the dollar store!  The sugar, peppercorns, and vanilla beans came from a bulk store, so they were very affordable.  And the cute containers came from the dollar store as well!

Total Price for Vanilla sugar: $3.00
~$2.00 for a vanilla bean
~$1.00 for organic sugar
$1.00 for jar

Total Price for Christmas spice salt: $3.00
~$1.00 for spices
$1.00 for sea salt
$1.00 for jar

Check out the other easy consumable gifts in this series:

No. 1: Pepper-Infused Vodka
No. 2: Jam
No. 3: Pie in a Jar
No. 4: Sugar and Spice
No. 5: Hot Chocolate on a Stick
No. 6: Gingies
No. 7: Granola 
No. 8: Preserved Lemons 
No. 9: Gingerbread Biscotti
No. 10: Cracker Crack
No. 11: Satsumettes
No. 12: Apricot Nut Bread