Our typical housewarming present is pretty standard. On the way to the housewarming or to see a friend's house for the first time, we stop at the grocery and pick out a decent bottle of wine on the way. Not exactly full of social grace. If it's a very good friend, we have in the past splurged on a nice bottle of bourbon or whatever liquor may be appreciated.
These days, even affording a bottle of wine has been a stretch, and I won't go as far as buying a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck. We had several birthdays and a housewarming in August, and with the car insurance payment situation in September, I was at a loss for what to do about a present for two very good friends that moved into their first house over Labor Day. We had plans to stop by on Sunday of Labor Day weekend and I was quickly running out of time the week prior.
Since I was already planning on making chicken stock on Saturday, I decided that I would take a large portion of it since this couple loves to cook and chicken stock can be a quick way to add some protein and tastiness to most meals. But the prospect of heading over there with a jar of stock and that's it seemed, well, weird. So I decided to scrounge around and see what else I could do. Here's what I ended up putting together:
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homemade chicken stock
shredded chicken from making the stock, vacuum-sealed
homemade hummus (I make a few adjustments to the linked recipe)
a habanero and jalepeno pepper from our garden (large, ripe and quite tasty-looking)
several packages of herbs cut from our garden: Thai basil, oregano and parsley
slow-roasted cherry tomatoes (think sun-dried tomatoes)
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I packaged it all up with tissue paper and instructions for storing anything they didn't use right away, put it all in a basket, and felt much better than if I just grabbed a bottle of wine on the go. They loved it, they smiled. I smiled. Husband smiled. Problem solved. Never mind that the only basket that fit nicely was my favorite basket and I hated to let it go. Sigh.
We ended up staying for hours, drank wine and partook in their awesome first-run on a the crockpot--beef stew. Being frugal ended up (I think) making them feel much more special than a run-of-the-mill present, and I had fun brainstorming with my husband about what to include that they would truly like.
I recently saw a link to Apartment Therapy's housewarming bucket, so I'm guessing many of you have similar creative housewarming presents. What are some of your best ideas?
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