Top 10 Gifts for Foodies

Tomatoes, sausages, nice crispy bacon.

The Master Pan can do all of these and more.  Use the middle sections for those items that require more heat (meat or fish say) while using the outer sections for the slightly slower cook (eggs, bread, veg). The Master Pan isn’t just a gimmick though, with a really high quality non-stick finish, dishwasher safe and all the rest you might expect. It also has the added benefit of drastically reducing washing up – bonus!

Get the Master Pan at…

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Rice rice baby!

Fear not, this isn’t quite as gimmicky and rapid fire as the title may suggest. Instead it’s the ultimate tool for creating perfectly proportioned sushi rolls. Simply load it up with rice and your chosen ingredients, close it up, and then press on the plunger to eject a perfect roll of sushi to be chopped up at will. It makes the whole process blindingly simple, and showcases you as a chef of some reckoning.

If you want to use it as an actual functioning sushi bazooka I’m sure you could make some modifications, but we really can’t condone that. Especially after what happened to mother’s kitchen last Christmas… my god, we’re still finding rice stuck into crevices all this time later…

Get the Sushi Bazooka at…

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To brie or not to brie!

It was important to us that a cheeseboard be included on this site because, well, cheese! But it’s actually surprising there’s not more variations around the theme. No cheeseboard on stilts, no remote control cheese-drone, no cheeseboard with added wine glass holder… nothing.

Maybe because some things just shouldn’t be meddled with. Breaking out a cheeseboard is a classy affair, and should be done with the proper decorum. You could do a lot worse then than go with this beautiful personalised cheeseboard from Getting Personal. Every household should have one. Unless you’re one of those weird cheese-hating households who Camembert it (I’m so sorry).

Get the Personalised Cheese Board at Getting Personal.

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You can’t really go wrong with afternoon tea, but you can go very right, and the Park Lane Hilton Champagne Afternoon Tea ranks up there as one of the absolute best for the money. The location is superb, and the array and quality of food on offer is truly excellent. You can of course have it without the bubbles too – the main delight comes in leisurely working through it all and desperately trying to find space for just one more cake.

If you’re thinking of buying afternoon tea as a gift, the other alternative is to buy an afternoon tea gift voucher from someone like Buyagift, allowing the recipient to pick a location of their own choosing. They do an ‘Afternoon Tea with Bubbles Smartbox’ which you can find here.

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Cheese! In a toastie! Delivered direct to your door! OMG!

Cheese Posties are a great gift for those who want to do something a little different. The basic premise is that they send you all of the ingredients for a different cheese toastie each week, along with assembly instructions and a little bag to pop it in for toasting. The reason it works so well is because a) who wouldn’t want cheese delivered direct to their door? And b) it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Having been on the receiving end of one of these, we can tell you it’s a real thrill when a new one pops through the door each week and you can get stuck into it.

You can also collect the different, colourful recipe cards for future use as well as challenging yourself to some new flavour sensations. We’re not really huge sauerkraut fans, but have to say the one with sauerkraut in was delicious and completely changed our way of thinking. Check them out and see what you think.

Check out Cheese Posties here.

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I’m the kinda G that little homies wanna be like – Fryin’ shrimp in the night, medium heat on a gas light.

Framed through his new cookery book, Cookin’ with Coolio, the original lyrics to ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ mentioned above suddenly start to make a lot more sense. This man loves his food and he loves to cook, and… wait… what do you mean those aren’t the proper lyrics?? Oh god I’ve been wrong all these years!

Cookin’ with Coolio is chock full of brilliant, interesting recipes and is really funny to boot. How can you not be won over by the likes of his ‘Drunk-ass Chicken’ or ‘Pimp My Shrimp’? This would make a great house-warming gift or fun Christmas present for a friend. Something fun and unique, but also a book that will actually be used.

It’s going on in the kitchen!

Get Cookin’ with Coolio at…

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Roll up roll up!

The YO! Sushi Sushi Making Workshop can be a great gift for those who love.. well, sushi.

And it gets them out of the house! How can you not admire that?

Learn from the sushi masters as you navigate your way through all the classics including maki, nigiri, temaki, and inside-out rolls. The whole experience lasts for 2 hours, and you get to take all of your sushi home with your very own rolling mat and how-to booklet. Obviously if you don’t like sushi then this isn’t for you. I mean that’s just obvious. For those people we recommend a pizza making course, because frankly, no-one dislikes pizza. Anyone who says they do is either a liar or a fraud. There we’ve said it.

You can pick up the Sushi Making Workshop experience from Buyagift here.

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Curry favour with your friends or family!

In a similar setup to the likes of the Cheese Postie, the Friday Night Curry Subscription is a service that delivers fresh ingredients directly to your door for you to fry up. Each month you’ll receive all the fresh spices and recipes needed to create an incredible curry, along with additional side dishes.

The curries themselves cover multiple territories from Malaysia, to the Caribbean and regional curry spreads from all over India.

Personally, we really rate gifts that encourage some kind of creative endeavour, and this is sure to fire up a culinary spark or two. It’s also heaps of fun and not to mention… delicious.

Get the Friday Night Curry Subscription at Not On the High Street.

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Now that I’m hungry more than ever, know that we can still cook together

You can cook with my Nutella. You can cook with my Nutella

Ella, ella, eh, eh, eh.. etc.

What else is there to say? Delicious recipes all involving Nutella! What’s not to love? Kids love it, adults love it too, and it’s incredibly fun to work through the various recipes together and to share the spoils with family and/or friends. And/or just yourself, because nuts are totally healthy and I’m only crying because eating that whole tray of Nutella brownies made me feel so happy and fulfilled as a human being. So there.

Get the Nutella Cookbook at…

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May contain nuts.

Making your own peanut butter, it turns out, is staggeringly easy. Simply buy some peanuts (for this is the key ingredient of peanut butter) and some oil. Oh, and to make it a lot easier, the ‘Peanut Butter Maker’. Peanut butter fanatics will love it. It also comes complete with some other delicious peanut butter based recipes. Chocolate peanut butter? Holy mind-blown Batman!

We’ll just leave the slight caveat on this one that you should really only buy it if you’re seriously into peanut butter and have the space. You don’t want it to sit in a cupboard gathering dust next to the popcorn maker and waffle iron from last Christmas. But if you are seriously into peanut butter? Knock your bloody socks off! May all your peanut buttery dreams come true.

Get the Peanut Butter Maker at…

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