Spiced & roasted chickpeas - an easy hostess gift

Spiced and roasted chickpeas: curry and cayenne pepper on the left, cumin and pepper on the right.

I said it before: I try to avoid coming empty-handed when I'm invited over to someone's house for an evening of eating/drinking/playing games/whatever - especially if I don't know them too well. I do it often enough (more often than not) but at least I feel slightly to quite uncomfortable about it. 
(My boyfriend can attest to that: 9 out of 10 times when we meet up to go anywhere it goes like this:

Me: Oh gosh. I don't have anything for them.
Him: That's ok.
Me: ...I just didn't have time to bake anything!
Him: Don't worry about it, no one expects you to.
Me: Well, I expect myself to.
Him: ...)

So when I was supposed to go to my boyfriend's friend's brother's birthday, I panicked. I had subzero time for baking or anything of that sort. In times like this, I turn to one of my favourite food items: chickpeas.

Easy hostess/host gift: self-made chili vinegar or chili oil

Self-made chili vinegar

Ok, so this one isn't about baking and doesn't invole an oven in any kind. But, meh, who cares.

I was invited for dinner to a friend's place and usually I don't like turning up to stuff like that empty-handed, especially if I suspect the person may have put some effort in having me over (she did, it was delicious and a lovely evening - so I was very glad I had prepared something for her).

So this time I turned to Martha for inspiration. I like looking at Martha Stewart's website, I like the style and sometimes they have nice ideas. Yes, sometimes I like to browse the crafts pages, the wedding etiquette pages, the hostess gifts section... Does that make me older than I am? Well, I always suspected that I am a little bit 1950s housewife on the inside.