My Current Dilemma

Every year our church holds a Mother-Daughter banquet, and while the men do the cooking and cleanup, the some of the ladies do the decorating of the tablets. The woman in charge does an excellent job every year of coming up with themes and then carrying that theme through the whole evening. Those of us who "do" a table are requested to come up with a centerpiece that is auctioned off to help cover the cost of the banquet and a small favor for each place setting. Last year the table was to reflect your talent - I did a dozen Christmas ornaments attached to grapevine trees and a small ornament as the favor. One year I did a cake (no favor needed).

This is year we are to do something from the kitchen; the exact name of the theme escapes me at the moment. My first inclination was to do quick breads, specifically banana, strawberry, chocolate chip, poppy seed and lemon breads as the centerpiece with small individual loaves as the favor. The problem? My oven is not the most reliable. The thermostat is off by approximately 25 degrees one way or the other once you get past 325. I am going to attempt the banana and strawberry breads this weekend as a trial run using an oven thermometer and see how that goes.

If it doesn't work out, I need option B. So I've been thinking of something from the kitchen that doesn't require baking. One thought was a basket of mixes - brownie mix, cornbread mix, soup mix, etc., with a cake-in-a-mug mix for the favor. Very easy and simple to do. My other thought was to do a pizza garden - the centerpiece would be a pot with a tomato plant and basil and oregano planted in it, with perhaps an apron, hot pads and a pizza dough mix. Favors could be mini pots of basil - even if you don't cook with it, it is supposed to ward off flies. I'm thinking that would be very different from what everyone else might be doing, and I have plans to do one for myself anyhow, but it might get a little expensive mainly with the pots. (And seeds - have you seen seed prices lately??? I looked in Wal-Mart last night and nearly fell over. $1.87 for a packet of basil seeds? Seriously? We had better have a lot of pizza this year! haha) With the herbs, I would probably need to get those started NOW to have them even popping out of the soil in 2 weeks or else buy already-established plants, which I would probably do for the large centerpiece pot. Or decide on a different favor - a potholder or mini whisk maybe? Anyhow, this weekend will be full of baking, although I do not have high hopes of reliable success. Can you tell what I'm leaning toward? Is it something anyone but me would even want? Wish me luck!