Homemade Eggnog: Possible and Delicious

This is one of my favorite recipes to share at holiday gatherings and special parties. You may or may not be a fan of the eggnog that shows up in grocery stores at Christmas time but love or hate it this is something completely different. I happen to dislike store bought eggnog very much. This, however, tastes light and rich and just plain amazing.



The ingredients are few: eggs, milk, sugar, salt, nutmeg, vanilla and cream.



Whisk together the eggs, salt and sugar.



Stir in one quart of milk.



Heat over low heat until the temperature reaches 160 - 170 degrees. Stir constantly or you will have bits of cooked egg in your nog and that's just plain weird. I have saved it from egg chunks by using my immersion blender to reincorporate the separated egg.



Place in an ice water bath (or snow bath if you live in a place that has piles of snow right outside the front door).



Stir in another quart of milk, nutmeg and vanilla.



The proper thing to do now is to take some heavy whipping cream and whip it until soft peaks form. Us poor bush dwelling folks don't have access to heavy whipping cream unless we special order it. So, our emergency substitution for real whipping cream is Dream Whip. It virtually has an endless shelf life. I recommend buying this for your backup Armageddon supplies. That way if the world around you is crumbling you can still have nice desserts.



I normally put the eggnog a punch bowl, top with the whipped cream and sprinkle nutmeg on top for a pretty effect. For this photo my coffee mug will have to do.

I promise you, even the most skeptical party goer will be crazy for this if you can get them to take just one sip.

Homemade Eggnog

Ingredients:
1 dozen eggs
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 quarts milk (divided)
2 T vanilla
1tsp nutmeg
2 c. heavy whipping cream

Pretty punch bowl  

Directions: In a heavy 4-quart saucepan, whisk together eggs, sugar & salt. Add 1 quart of the milk. Cook and stir over low heat until 160 - 170 degrees. Stir in vanilla, nutmeg and remaining milk. Cool in an ice water bath. If the mixture separates mix it in the blender. It'll fix things right up. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours or more. When ready to serve, beat cream until soft peaks form. Whisk gently into cooled milk. Pour in to a chilled punch bowl. Sprinkle with nutmeg. 

~AnnMarie

Pumpkin Smoothie

Have you noticed I'm crazy about all things pumpkin? So as not to overwhelm those of you who are not quite as obsessed with pumpkin as me, I promise this will be my last pumpkin filled recipe of the season.

I recently found this recipe for Pumpkin Smoothies off of Pioneer Woman's blog. It looked so easy I just had to try it immediately. Both my boys loved it as well. I'm thinking this will become one of our favorite ways to use pumpkin.

I don't usually buy pumpkin pie filling so I made some modifications to the recipe so that I can use my frozen pumpkin puree.



I'll reuse this pumpkin puree photo from the pumpkin pie post.  When you've seen one bag of mushy pumpkin, you've seen them all.



Our two cup bags of pumpkin are frozen already so for this recipe I let it thaw just enough so my handy "Mix N Chop" from pampered chef is able to break it up.



You'll need some yogurt, I used one jar of homemade yogurt.



Add milk to the pumpkin and yogurt. I used 1/2 milk 1/2 evaporated milk in lieu of the whole milk called for in The Pioneer Woman's recipe. Until we have another baby, no whole milk is to be found at our house.



You'll need some vanilla, I'm a fan of the high quality stuff. Life is too short to use mediocre vanilla I say.



I included white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and cinnamon to the mixture and blended thoroughly.



Pretty huh? I found it goes down pretty easy.



Sprinkle some crushed graham crackers on top for a jazzy effect and you're all set.


My Modified Pumpkin Smoothie Recipe

2 cups of frozen pureed pumpkin (partially thawed)
1 c. evaporated milk
1 c. milk
1/2 c. yogurt (or more)
1/4 c. white sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
crushed graham crackers

~AnnMarie

Tundra Tea

One cold wintery day, my friend Darla offered up a new and wonderful hot beverage for C.O. and I to try, tundra tea. Since then I've had a little thing for this steaming hot goodness. It tastes like what I imagine the tundra would taste like if you could bend down and gobble it up.  When we're locked in by snow and ice, it's a wonderful reminder of warmer days out in the countryside.



Tundra tea is more commonly known as Labrador Tea. Here is a cute, little Labrador "forest".



This year we decided to collect and save a bunch for ourselves. This way we don't have to show up at Darla's house with sad puppy dog eyes begging for a cup of tundra tea.



After pulling off the leaves, we put them on a piece of parchment paper to dry in the food dehydrator. Darla just puts the whole works in the freezer until she's ready to brew her tea, but we are white folks and like to make things more complicated than they need to be.



We use this lovely little tea pot to make our loose leaf teas. It just happens to be the very first thing C.O. and I bought together as a couple. Isn't it cute and classy at the same time? Our very favorite feature is that it never, ever drips from the spout when we're done pouring. This makes my engineering minded husband very happy.



Throw those leaves in the strainer.



Add boiling water.  Psst! Electric tea kettles are the bomb if you drink a lot of hot beverages.



The tea turned out a bit weak, but still very tasty. I added some leaves to the water for visual interest. Oh and I don't recommend sugar for this tea. Usually I cannot drink coffee or tea without copious amounts of sugar but tundra tea is different, sugar detracts rather than adds to the taste. 

I found this blog post by a gal up near the Brooks range mountains who talks a bit more about Labrador and how it is used by Inupiat people in her area. Check out the rest of her blog as well while you're at it. It's worth reading.

~AnnMarie