Three things I love:

Bacon.

Candy.

People that make special things with special ingredients.

aaaand bonus.  You.  I think you’re awful swell.

Because I love all of these things, I thought I’d share a little something with you.

Morning Glory Confections is a Los Angeles based artisan brittle and candy company.  We’re talking handmade, small batch candy with amazing flavor combinations.  

The best part?  I want to send you some!

The Bacon, Spanish Paprika and Cashew Brittle recently roused my interest.  It’s sweet and smoky with just a lingering bit of salt and spice.  It’s absolutely delightful.

Because I couldn’t help myself, I also tried the Almond and Bacon Dragees.  Lightly candied and crunchy almonds triple coated in semi sweet chocolate, dusted in cocoa powder and tiny bacon crumbled.  Subtle.  Chocolate.  The perfect crunch.  I ate them for breakfast this morning… I wish I were kidding.  

And because I couldn’t order from Morning Glory without getting my absolute favorite treat… I also got a Fleur de Sel Peanut Brittle.  It’s perfectly salty and sweet and marvelous.  

I’m sharing with you!  Three of you darling people will win some Morning Glory.  Just leave a comment on this post from now until Saturday at midnight.  Say hi.  Tell me my hair looks nice… it’ll make me feel good.  ooOh happy day!

You are just the most lovely people ever.  I’m so glad you’re out there in the world!  

Reading through your best holiday gift comments totally put a smile on my face.  Who knew you all were so charming and touching and genuine and humble and all around rad!?  I knew… I totally knew that. 

Those of you that said that your husbands and children were your best gift ever… you’re tender and I’m going to have to punch you now.  Don’t worry.  It’s a punch in a good way.  Seriously. 

Winners.  Four of you darling people win.  Thanks for letting me regift upon you. 

Millie.  Hi!  Sweet.  You win!  Merry Christmas!

Doreen!  Holy heck!  You’re number two!

Sabby!  Hooooray!  

Romy!  You too!  And your blog is super cute too!

You four should email me at joy at joythebaker dot com.  We’ll talk.  I’ll gift.  You’ll receive.  

I’m a regifter.  

Yep.

Please reserve your judgement.  This is about to get interesting.

See… I’ve been given all sorts of gifts this year.  From two blogger conferences, I’ve amassed enough kitchen supplies to equip a small army of chefs.  

The good news is that I want to share all of this loot with you.  It’s not that I don’t love these things, it’s just that I love regifting more.  It’s like the most fun recycling… ever.  That’s where you come in. 

I’ve got silly whisks.  I’ve got gorgeous cookbooks.  I’ve got coffee and milk frothers.  I’ve got choppers and tenderizers.  Cuisinart, people.  I’ve got fancy sporks and way cool forks… all sorts of little gems.  

I’m regifting four little bundles of kitchen goodies to four of you.  Keep the goodies as a gift to yourself or regift them this holiday season.  I won’t tell a soul!

To enter this (both humble and perhaps ethically questionable) giveaway, just leave a comment in this post sharing the best holiday gift you’ve ever received.  Comments are accepted until Sunday at noon.  

I have really great news friends!  

Number One: I had chicken and waffles for dinner last night.  Hot dang!  Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles… you were great news for my belly.

Number Two:  Remember a few days ago when I was telling you how lovely the people at Minted.com are?  Turns out… I was totally spot on!  I love when that happens.  I was right about their intrinsic awesomeness, which leads right into my third bit of great news…

Number Three:  Minted.com is offering every single one  of you a 15% discount on any holiday card order you place between now and Wednesday November 11th. Coupon code is: JOYTHEBAKER  Whaaaat!?  Yea.  Awesome.  So. Super. Sweet.  

Now here’s the deal.  I totally think you should hop on over to Minted.com and make up some super cute holiday cards.  Make sure you order enough so that you can send me on.  Seriously.  I want your smiling face in my mailbox.  It’ll make my insides happy.  Order them.  Email me.  I’ll send you my address.  I want a card.  If you think I’m kidding, think again.  

Aaaaand!  One last and very exciting bit of great news for one lucky reader…

Number Four (on the list of really great news):  Melissa Anizor.  You have some seriously lucky birthday mojo because Random.org chose shining number 657.  That’s you!  You win holiday cards!  Also… Happy freakin’ Birthday!

Here we are, staring November right in the eye.  Am I the only one giving November dirty looks?  I mean seriously November… how did you sneak up on me like this?  Did you just trample over September and October to rub your impending holiday spirit in my face?

I’m not sure I’m ready to dive into the season… but you know what?  I’ve gone and pushed myself into that pool.  Ok… not really.  I had some help.  Minted.com gave me a shove… a friendly shove.. but still a shove.

See, Minted.com wanted to share something with you.  They also wanted to me look super organized in my holiday spiriting.  Thanks for that Minted. Well played.  

So!  Here’s the situation.  Minted.com makes awesome, cute, rad ,modern, hip, tasteful, bodacious, colorful and fun holiday cards.  Remember the long photo holiday cards your Mom would send out in 1983?  They were decorated with some sort of pixelated wreath and an unflattering picture of you and your sister  pretending to decorate a Christmas tree?  Yea… that doesn’t have to happen anymore.  Thank you Minted.com.  Thank you.  

Now… how cute is this?  You know, for when you want to show off how darling and precious your new baby is.  Awesome.  Pinch.  Cheeks.  Want.

These are also pretty rad.  Yes… everyone seems to have babies to show off.  Don’t hate.  

And.  Yes.  Minted.com has totally raised the bar on holiday cards.  How about holiday books, people!?  Holiday books!  I made a Holiday MiniBook Card and packed it full of photos, recipes and a charming, if not slightly threatening holiday message for my friends and family.

I love these books.  I love the people… actual people at Minted.com who organized the layout and gave me proofs of my little books to review before they were printed.  Actual people.  

I love that I have one set of Holiday MiniBook Cards to give to one reader.  Imagine… your holiday cards printed and paid for!  It’s a dream, I tell you.  

To win a set of 25 Holiday MiniBooks custom designed by you and Minted… plus standard shipping, just leave a comment on this post before Wedensday 9pm PST.  

Thanks Minted.com.  For reals. 

Let’s make this quick and dirty, shall we?

From a cool 1,123 comments, Random.org has selected lucky winners 555 and 836.  That means Miss Andrea Cox and Stephanie from Hawaii… Holy Heck!  You win win win!  

But… there’s goodness for all of us.  The lovely folks at Green Kitchen Tools would like to offer each and every one of you 10% off whatever fancypants products you might like to treat yourself too.  Everyone likes a sale right!?  Consider this your own personal Green Kitchen Tools sale.  Simply type: GKT10P into the coupon code and… taadaaa!  Money saving magic.  

Tomorrow?  Spiced Diced Apple Cake.  Let me just tell you… it’s a good thing I took pictures of that dang cake already because I’ve already eaten half of it…. by myself… using the “I’ll just have a sliver” method.  It’s good.  It’s really really good.

Can I tell you about my new favorite kitchen tool?  

Nope… not a big ladle… not a fancy spatula, but a mighty fine and beautifully crafted pizza cutter from Green Kitchen Tools.  

Ironically enough, I have not yet used this pizza cutter to slice pizza, but so far it’s worked wonders helping me with the homemade pasta and slices right through the giant kale leaves that I like to eat for dinner.  Soon enough I’ll use the sharp blade and lovely bamboo handle to slice through my favorite pizza.  

Before I get cooking, I wanted to take a minute to give two of you a set of these super sweet bamboo handled kitchen utensils.  

One happy reader will get a full set of Green Kitchen Tools spoons, spatulas and pancake flippers.  

Another giddy reader will get a full set of grill tools.  Sweet deal right?

 All you have to do to enter this giveaway is leave a comment telling me about your favorite kitchen tool.  Come on!  Play along! 

I’ve got a great cure for the Tuesday Blues!

It’s time to give goodies away!

Close to 1,000 of you darling people have so graciously entered for this humble giveaway including Rishi Tea, Morning Glory Confections and Baggu bags.  A cool 15 of you won won won!  Click on through and see if you’re a winner!

What’s going on this week around these parts!?  I’ll tell ya…  coffee, cookies, what looks like the last of my summer tomatoes, and what the heck am I going to grow for Fall?  Have any ideas for me?  I’m going to need some gardening advice.

Ok… winning numbers look like this on random.org.  Oooooh!  Enticing, right?

Do you see your shining comment up here?  If you do, email me at joythebaker (at) gmail (dot) com with your address, and I’ll get your happy bag shipped off to you!

If you don’t see your shining comment up here in the winner’s circle, I suggest you mosey on into the kitchen and whip up these Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies.  Hot dang, how have I missed this amazing combination for so long?

What’s the best part of going to a party?  Let me answer that for you…. the Gift Bag!!!

Now… it doesn’t happen very often now that I’m an adult, but the best part about leaving my friends’ birthday parties between the ages of 6 and 10 was the gift bag.  Something about that super bouncy ball, fake lipstick key chain and mini coloring book with crayon just set my world right.

Because there aren’t nearly enough gift bags in my adult world, I knew that my rooftop picnic must… MUST have parting gift bags.

Three companies were generous enough to make these gift bags possible.   Here’s the part where I thank them for their awesomeness and give stuff away to you, and you, and you!

Rishi Tea not only donated all of the tea for me to brew for the event, they also included 200 instant tea packs attached to a 20%off coupon.  Remember the tea pot giveaway? Yea!  That was Rishi Tea too!  These people are seriously generous and they have really lovely tea.  I’ve been making their iced chamomile tea all summer…. no lie.

Baggu. Ooooh dearest and most darling Baggu.  Thanks for playing along with all of my shenanigans.  I’ve now had two Baggu, reusable bag giveaways, and Baggu was kind enough to donate 200 colorful reusable shopping bags to my picnic.  Boy of boy were they a hit!  Baggu, I’m pretty sure everyone at my neighborhood Trader Joe’s is jealous of me when I check out with these bags.  I play it cool.  I can’t blame them.

Then there’s Morning Glory Confections .  I’ve never been a huge fan of brittle until I got my hands on Max’s Morning Glory Brittle.  It’s hand made… (hand made!  I’ve seen his hands) brittle in flavors that I never knew could exist in brittle-land.  There’s Indian Curry with Pistachio, New Mexico Chili with Pumpkin Seed, Cocoa Nib Coffee Bean and Pecan, and my favorites Chai Tea with Cashew and Fleur de Sel with Peanut.  Max also sells his treats at the Melrose Farmer’s Market every Sunday… if you’re in Los Angels.  He was so kind to make these 200 brittle packages for me… by hand.  Thank you Max!  I think you’re rad!

So here’s where you win too!

See, I’ve got extra gift bags and I want you to have them!

You have between now and Sunday night at midnight PST to leave a comment on this post expressing your excitement.  I’ll pick 15… yes, 15 winners and ship off bags to them!  Whoa!  I think these packages are also light enough to be shipped international… so bring it on world!

BONUS!  I’m doing a more intimate gift bag giveaway on Twitter and on my Facebook Fan Page sometime Friday afternoon.  Instant winners… ooh yeah!  If you follow me on Twitter, or you’re a fan of Joy the Baker on the old Facebook, then you have an even better chance of nabbing a gift bag.  Keep an eye out this afternoon!  It’s going to be fuuuuun!

We have cute bags to talk about!  Can you stand a bit more Baggu talk?  Good… because I’ve got good news. 

There are two Baggu set winners.  Two lucky ladies out of the thousand of you who commented (geeeez!) that win the two colorful sets above.

But really… WE ALL WIN!

Baggu is offering Joy the Baker readers a 15% discount on cute bag purchases made through the weekend.  Yea!  Cool, right?  All you have to do is pick your favorite Baggu colors, checkout and type JOY (all caps) in the coupon area.  Easy as pie!  Thanks Baggu.  We like you.  We think you’re terrific.  We also think that people should use the word ‘terrific’ more often.  

Baggu set winners are Barefoot Rooster (do roosters wear shoes?) and Mindy Harris.  Congratulations!