We are finally getting around to baking our Christmas cookies this afternoon. We are going to keep it simple: shortbread (dipped in melted dark chocolate), gingersnaps (we need that aroma wafting through the air), sugar cookies (because we want to play with sprinkles at least once a year) and fudge (because it is tradition). A friend of ours is coming to help bake, and she is bringing the eggnog. We cannot wait. We have Pandora ready to start belting out Christmas carols and we are going to fa-la-la-la-la the afternoon away. Many apologies to the cubicle dwellers, this is one of the perks of working from home. It is my freelancer office party.
Homemade eggnog is so much more wonderful than anything we can snatch out of the dairy department at the grocery store. Every once in a while we worry about those raw eggs, but our theory is that the rum will kill anything that might be the least bit dodgey or salmonella-y, so we just shouldn’t worry. I love beating up frothy and foamy waves of egg whites. It is so festive, and gives us the illusion of snow. Maybe we should cut back on the alcohol.
Another half dozen good reasons to concoct your own eggnog is the list of scary and unwieldy and unfamiliar ingredients in the store-bought brand: high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, guar gum, salt, carrageenan, turmeric and annatto.
I do like this easy-peasy recipe that calls for ice cream, though. It’s not as if there aren’t enough calories from the cream and the sugar and the alcohol. Let’s throw in some high-test ice cream, too. This might be why Santa waddles. All that eggnog. And he probably drinks it all year long. That and hot chocolate. Yumsters!
https://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,173,129186-240193,00.html
And how about adding hot buttered rum sauce to a humble dish of ice cream? Christmas could last year round for us, too.
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Eggnog-Ice-Cream-with-Hot-Buttered-Rum-Sauce-106018
Here are some other eggnog recipes for you to whip up in your home test kitchens:
https://www.food52.com/recipes/8425_warm_egg_nog
We hope all you Whos down in Whoville have a festive and merry Christmas season. Have a cup of cheer as you wrap up all the love tokens for your family and friends. Share the Christmas cookies and the holiday warmth. Visit George Bailey one more time. Remember the small and the meek. Cheers!
“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.“
-Garrison Keillor
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