Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Homestead Eggnog: Two ways!

Welcome back to the homestead!
Before we jump into this glorious eggnog recipe, I need to thank Gary for helping me with the filming. I have been strugling with the notion of making more cooking videos but I don't have the room to set up lighting and recording equipment, in order to do it justice.(type A personality here, do it right or don't do it.)
It seems that Gary also wanted me to do more videos about the things we are cooking here on the Homestead, so we agreed something is better than nothing, and off we went, I do hope you all enjoy the video and do watch at the end for an out take....




I found the recipe that I used as my guide while scroling through Facebook. It was providence I tell you! I follow Alton Brown, you know from Good Eats? Too far back for you huh? How about his more recent Cut Throat Kitchen? Okay, well Alton Brown is one of my all time favorite chefs/cooks. He is smart, funny and matter of fact, and I love that!
He has this amazing recipe for Aged Eggnog on his site. I read through the comments section for the reviews for about 45 min. I kid you not, I am kind of a review geek! I decided that the reviews were just too good to ignore.

We set about gathering all the ingredients we needed to assemble the concoction that gets better over time. We went to the store to retrive from it the bottles of liquor they were holding hostage, only to find out that they didn't have one type we needed. But as I read through so many comments I knew I could replace the Congnac with Brandy. So we did.

I normally like to buy all organic if I can find it. In this case I was not able to get Organic cream. (Boo Hannaford)
So with the ingredients in hand we went home and prepared our first batch.
Because I am LCHF/Ketogenic, I decided I had to do my best to make a no sugar version. I followed the recipe to the letter, but used Lakanto Monk Fruit Sugar replacement for the sugar called for in the recipe.
Since making and trying it, I would adjust the recipe to only using half  of the Lakanto sugar. It is extremely sweet. It may just be my non sugar eating taste buds, but If you are sugar free as well, then that is my personal suggestion!
I do not know how it will affect the consistancy of the nog yet, but I am going to make a non alcoholic version soon and I will report back on how that turns out. 

So on to the recipe.

If you want to try to follow it I say go for it.

Homestead Eggnog Sugar Free Version

Ingredients
  1. 12 large pasture raised egg yolks (store bought pasteurized if you need peace of mind)
  2. 1/2 pound Lakanto Monk fruit sugar
  3. 1 pint half-n-half
  4. 1 pint whole milk
  5. 1 pint heavy cream
  6. 1/2 cup Jamaican light rum
  7. 1/2 cup Jamaican dark rum
  8. 1 cup French Brandy
  9. 1 cup Evan Williams Honey (kentucky straight burbon whiskey)
  10. 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (plus more for serving)
  11. 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
  1. Separate the eggs and store the whites for another purpose.
  2. Beat the yolks with the sugar and nutmeg in a large mixing bowl until the mixture lightens in color and falls off the whisk in a solid "ribbon."
  3. Combine dairy, booze and salt in a second bowl or pitcher and then slowly beat into the egg mixture.
  4. Move to a large glass jar (or a couple of smaller ones) and store in the fridge for a minimum of 2 weeks. A month would be better, and two better still. In fact, there's nothing that says you couldn't age it a year, but I've just never been able to wait that long. (And yes, you can also drink it right away.)
  5. Serve in mugs or cups topped with a little extra nutmeg grated right on top.
If you would like to get the microplane that I use, I have linked to it in my Amazon store Here.

So this recipe is only slightly tweeked, and only because we couldn't find the congac. While we were shopping another shopper over heard us talking about what we were going to put in our eggnog and kindly mentioned the Evan Williams Honey as the best in eggnog. We figured we should give it a try and we think it was a great suggestion!

This is our first time making homemade eggnog and if we can do it you can too! It is easy (if a little expensive, ingredient wise) But for a nice holiday treat I think it is worth it!

The time it takes to prepare right now is minimal. And if you make two batches and store one away for next year, your job is done untill next year when you do it all over again, starting a new holiday tradition for years to come!

Give it a try and let us know how yours turned out! If you used a different combination of alcohols. Or if you went by Alton's or my sugar free recipe. We would love to hear from you.
As always, sending out love from the homestead,
Gary and Victoria


Cheers to great food and good health!



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