An attractive gift box or basket filled to overflowing with wonderful specialty foods is a great gift for your favorite gourmet; but why not add a unique touch by including a collection of recipes along with the basket?

Gift baskets can focus on gourmet breakfast items, like pancake and waffle mixes, jams, and syrups, gourmet cooking items like vinegars and oils, or dessert ingredients such as pie fillings. Whatever ingredients you choose, they can be used in an astonishing number of different recipes.

You may have some of your own favorite recipes that can integrate one or more items from the gift box or basket; if not, look through women's magazines or search the Internet for recipes which require one of your food items as an ingredient.

Some gourmet food companies offer recipes along with their specialty foods, sometimes incorporating them in some unusual and surprising ways. Stonewall Kitchen offers a variety of fine food items; their website also offers a whole collection of recipes, which you can print onto your own cards, emphasizing different foods. Searching their recipe database for Apple Cranberry Chutney, for instance, offers fifteen different recipes, from appetizers and hors d'oeuvres to beverages and desserts, from main dishes to soups and salads.

Their Free Form Apple Tart with Apple Cranberry Chutney combines apples, vanilla, lemon and nutmeg with Stonewall Kitchens popular chutney and puts it in a tart shell for a deliciously distinctive dessert. Another product, their chocolate peanut butter sauce, offers two great dessert recipes, Chocoate Peanut Butter Cookies and Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream.

Plan a Dinner Around a Special Recipe

Plan a get-together with family and friends with a special gourmet recipe as the star attraction. Garlic Rosemary Chicken Skewers are created using Stonewall Kitchen's Garlic Rosemary Citrus Sauce; you might also want to add a simple dessert like Lemon Pistachio Cookies, with Stonewall Kitchen White Chocolate Orange Sauce.

A nice little gift for your dinner guests would be a jar or bottle of the featured ingredient; be sure you attach the recipe to the product with a decorative ribbon.

Gift Baskets Make Great Fund Raisers

If your favorite nonprofit organization is planning a fund raiser, consider donating a lavish gift basket to be raffled off; make sure you tuck a collection of recipes into the basket, one or two for each product, plus information on how the lucky winner can get more of his or her favorite foods.

There are an infinite number of ways you can extend the usefulness of a specialty food item or gourmet gift basket; use the ones in this article, or come up with your own, based on your personal knowledge of the recipient's own favorites. Either way, your gift will be much appreciated as the loving gesture it is.

Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwestern New Hampshire, who has written numerous articles for the Internet and for local and regional publications. She may be reached at amfredenburg@yahoo.com.