Taco Bean Chili Soup Mix + Pasta Soup Mix

We all have those family members who don't necessarily have a sweet tooth.....shocking! I know, crazy right? But its true my mom is diffidently one of those lucky women who just don't have a sweet tooth.  Its more like a vodka tooth...lol just kidding, love you mom! inside joke between us :)

But seriously I wanted to give her and some other family members a homemade edible gift that wasn't just cookies, so I had to go a little outside the box.  My wonderful neighbor and friend let me borrow a small book she bought from the girl scouts that contained recipes for items in a jar and a few showcased soup mixes.  My mom and nana are huge soup fans so I knew that these homemade gifts would be just for them.

There are 2 different soup mixes.  Italian Tomato Pasta Soup Mix and a Taco Bean Chili Mix that have been adapted from the Gifts from a Jar book.

Materials You'll Need
Mason Jar (pint size for the chili bean mix)
Mason Jar (Quart size for the pasta mix)
Ribbon
Glue stick
Name tags
Stickers


Ingredients for Taco Bean Chili Jar

1/2 Cup dried Kidney Beans
1/2 Cup dried Pinto Beans
1/2 Cup dried Red Beans
1 Package (1 1/4 ounce) Taco Seasoning Mix
1 Tablespoon dried minced onion
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

To Layer the Ingredients

1st layer:  Kidney Beans
2nd layer: Pinto Beans
3rd layer: Red Beans
4th layer: ziplock sandwich bag with all your spices

In a ziplock sandwich bag and all your spices including emptying the taco seasoning mix into it.  add the ziplock baggy as the 4th layer and place the lid and close tight.

Recipe for the Taco Bean Chili

1 Jar Taco Bean Chili Mix
4 cups Beef broth or Vegetarian broth to make it vegetarian :)
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes with green chiles
1 can (8 ounces) Tomato Sauce
1 pound ground beef or morning star crumbles (for vegetarian) cooked and drained
1 1/2 cups tortilla chips
Optional: Shredded Cheese, cilantro, sour cream and extra chips for dipping

Directions
- Remove the spice bag from the jar and set aside
- Place beans in a large bowl; cover with water. Soak 6 to 8 hours or overnight.  (To quick soak the beans, place beans in large saucepan; cover with water.  Bring to boil over high heat.  Boil 2 minutes.  Remove from heat; let soak, covered for 1 hour).  Drain beans; discard water.
- Place soaked beans, broth, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, ground beef or crumbles and contents of spice packet in a large pot or dutch oven.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Cover; reduct heat and simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until beans are tender.
- Optional- Crush tortilla chips. Stir into chili and cook 5 to 10 minutes to thicken.  Serve with cheese, cilantro and sour cream.

Ingredients for the Italian Tomato Pasta Soup Mix Jar

2 1/2 cups Farfalle (bow tie) pasta
2 tablespoons dried vegetable flakes, soup greens or dehydrated vegetables

1 Tablespoon dried minced onion
1 teaspoon chicken or vegetable bouillon granules
1 teaspoon Italian herb seasoning
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese

To Layer the Ingredients

Place pasta into the jar and sprinkle in the dried vegetables , onion, granules, italian seasoning, sugar, minced dried garlic and pepper.  Place the parmesan cheese into a ziplock bag and add it to the top of the pasta. Close the lid and decorate the jar.

Recipe for Italian Tomato Pasta Soup Mix

1 Jar Italian Tomato Pasta Soup Mix
5 cups water
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1/2 package (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed
4 to 6 slices crisp cooked bacon, crumbled (omit for vegetarian)

Directions

- Remove cheese packet from jar
- Combine the water and remaining contents of jar in a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil over high heat; boil 10 to 12 minutes. Stir in crushed tomatoes, spinach and bacon.  Reduce heat; simmer 10 to 12 minutes or until pasta is tender. Serve with parmesan cheese.

Note: Even though I am vegetarian my family is not, so most of these recipes are easily adapted to be either made for my dear meat eaters or my fellow vegetarians.

M&M Christmas Cookies in a Jar

This is my first DIY project that I will be sharing. This homemade gift is not only bakes into delicious cookies with tons of chocolate chips and m&m's, its also pretty inexpensive to purchase the items you'll need, you can decorate the jars to suit the person your giving the gift to.  I got my mason jars from the Japanese 100 yen store, its basically your $ dollar tree in the states.  and I just bought a bunch of ribbon and stickers to paste onto my jars.  I also went into word and used a nice template and typed the recipe out and printed them on card stock and added the recipe to a Christmas card.

The reason for making homemade gifts this year was I wanted to do something extra special for my family and friends.  I thought hmmm, whats more special then homemade gifts that you can eat.  I can't tell you how excited I get every year knowing that my nana will send me a box of homemade cookies. So I'm hoping that my family and friends will get excited for my special homemade gifts each year, perhaps this will start my own tradition of sending out homemade cookies just like my nana.

I found this wonderful idea at Bakerella and adapted them for a Christmas themed gift.



M&M Christmas Cookies in a Jar

Materials:

Mason Jar ( 1 quart size)
Ribbon any color
Tags
Stickers
glue stick

Ingredients for the Jar
Adapted from Bakerella 

1 1/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cups m&m's
3/4 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 white sugar

How to layer the ingredients

1st layer: Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together
2nd layer: Oats
3rd layer: M&Ms
4th layer: chocolate chips
5th layer: Brown Sugar
6th layer: White sugar

I used a large spoon to add each layer into the jar, after adding the first layer, pack each layer next tightly by pressing down with the spoon or using your hand make a fist and gently pack each layer down.

Directions for baking the cookies

You'll need 
1 Jar m&m christmas cookies
1 egg slightly beaten
1/2 cup melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper
- Dump the ingredients from the jar into a large bowl and mix together.
- Mix your wet ingredients together in a small bowl and add to the dry ingredients.  using the back of a wooden spoon, work all the ingredients together.  Though I found that using your hands to combine the ingredients together worked the best :)
- Roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, place on the cookie sheet and back for 10 minutes, makes about 2 dozen cookies.

I apologize for not having a after shot of the cookies, I stayed up extra late to make a batch for family to send out in their packages the next day and i honestly didn't have enough energy to set up my make shift studio and take shots. Plus my hands hurt so much from all the paper cuts from the wrapping paper and boxes lol. Good thing x-mas comes once a year, and too bad I live in Japan so far away from family.

I link up to these fun parties