When Holiday Gift Ideas Are on Your Front Burner . . .

Gifts for cooks can have as much sex appeal as a bottle of Chanel or prompt as many chuckles as a Pet Rock.

Before you disagree, consider the following items. (Oh, and the best part: They’re all priced under $25.)

* You hunger for a romantic dinner at home, but the only dish your significant other has mastered is peanut butter sandwiches? Take heart. Better yet, buy the Home Gourmet, which features packaged basics such as spices, sauces and herbs needed to make anything from beef bourguignon to Creole chicken.

Each package contains detailed instructions on preparation and cooking time, plus a shopping list you’ll need to complete the dinner--meat or a few fresh vegetables, for instance. Instructions even detail the pots, pans and cooking utensils you’ll need. You supply the candles. Price: $16.50 to $19.50 at A Store for Cooks, 30100 Town Center Drive, Suite R, Laguna Niguel. (714) 495-0445.

* The Urban Salad-Indoor Garden, also available at A Store for Cooks, is perfect for those who’d love to grow their own lettuce but don’t have the time or space to do it. The “garden,” about the size of a breadbox, comes in a planter box filled with potting soil and seeds for an exotic salad mixture of greens and basil. Just take off the wrapper, water, place in sunshine and, a few weeks later, harvest.

Sally’s Choice of Seattle, which markets the garden, also makes a similar product for tea and herbs. Price: $13.25 to $17.50.

* The Twirl O’ Ghetti, which bills itself as “the ultimate gift for the pasta lover,” is perfect for the sloppy eater. It’s a fork-like contraption with a small twisting device on the end of the handle that twirls the prongs of the fork. Stick it in a plate of pasta, twist the end and never again worry about greasy stains on your favorite tie. Price: $4.95 at A Store for Cooks.

* Imagine having an eating utensil you could take anywhere in the world and have suit the cuisine. That’s exactly what inventor Donald Bonasia was thinking when he created Forkchops, which have a fork and knife on one end and chopsticks on the other. They’re made of sturdy bright-colored plastic and sell for about $4 a pair at two Laguna Beach stores: Soul to Sole, 278 Beach St., (714) 497-5997, and Art of Living, 477 Forest Ave. (714) 494-6966.

* Not many cooking tools are designed to put on the calories and take them off, but that’s what the BakePacker does. It looks like a tin quiche dish, but the bottom is a grid, and it can cook anything from pizza to brownies to gingerbread, all in the great outdoors, where, one assumes, you go for a hearty after-meal walk to exercise it all off.

The BakePacker works like this: Put all ingredients for whatever you want to make in a plastic storage bag and mix them by squeezing the bag around. Put the bag on the grid in the dish, and then put the whole thing in a pot of water, about an inch deep. Cover and boil, and remove when done.

The best part: No cleaning up; just a bag to dispose of. It comes with a recipe book and weighs only 4 ounces. Price: $13 at REI, 1411 Village Way, Santa Ana. (714) 543-4142.