Chicken Korma = Nostalgia

Way back when I lived in Edinburgh, one of my favorite things was the chicken korma at Tikka Mahal. I have never had a korma as good as they made there, but in an attempt to capture a taste of those times, I've found and modified this korma recipe. I can't speak to its authenticity, but it's pretty tasty. It's super involved but worth the work in the end.

Chicken Korma

Ingredients 

¼ c cashew halves

¼ c boiling water

3 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp pureéd ginger

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 large onion, minced 

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp chili pepper

½ tsp ground cinnamon 

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp curry powder

4 skinless chicken breasts, diced 

¼ c tomato sauce

1 c chicken broth

½ c coconut milk

½ c plain yogurt

2 tsp cornstarch, mixed with equal parts water

Salt

Directions

1. Place cashews in a small bowl, and pour the boiling water over nuts. Set aside for 15 to 20 minutes. 

2. Place garlic and ginger in food processor and blend until smooth; set aside.

3. Heat oil in wok over medium heat. 

4. Stir in onion, and cook until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. 

5. Mix in garlic/ginger paste, and season with coriander, garam masala, cumin, turmeric, brown sugar, curry powder, and chili powder. 

6. Stir in chicken, and cook for about 5 minutes. 

7. Pour in tomato sauce and chicken broth. 

8. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

9. Meanwhile, place the cashews, along with the water in which they were soaked, and the cream and yogurt into food processor. Process until smooth.

10. Stir the cashew mixture into the chicken and onions. 

11. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

12. Stir in the cornstarch mixture, and continue cooking for 1 to 2 minutes.

13. Serve over basmati rice. 

Pineapple Casserole

Tonight I made one of my favorite recipes, which I'd like to share with you, Dear Reader: Pineapple Casserole. The first time I share this dish with people, their reaction is usually skeptical. And yet, pineapple pizza is scientifically proven to be the best kind of pizza, so clearly pineapple and cheese belong together. This recipe is not only delicious but also super easy!

Ingredients:

1 20-oz can pineapple chunks in juice

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp sugar

1 ¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 ½ (approx. 25) crushed Ritz crackers

3 Tbsp melted butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 

2. Drain pineapple juice, reserving 3 tablespoons. 

3. Arrange pineapple on the bottom of a 1½-quart casserole dish. 

4. Combine flour and sugar and sprinkle over pineapple. 

5. Drizzle pineapple juice over top. 

6. Cover with cheddar cheese. 

7. Combine crackers and butter and cover the cheese. 

8. Baked, covered for 15 minutes. 

9. Uncover and bake another 10 minutes. 

12 Days of Christmas: Day Twelve: Black-Eyed Pea Cakes

Well, we did it, chums. You got 12 new posts and I proved to myself that I can create original content on the regular. True, this one is a day late, but that's better than a month late, I suppose.

For this final post of Christmas, I would like to share one of my most successful new recipes: Black-Eyed Pea Cakes.

I got the recipe from one of the food demonstration people at Publix and then I modified it to be vegan. I served them at my New Year's Eve party (for good luck), and they were a huge hit, so my boyfriend and I made them again a couple of days ago. As fast as we could churn them out, they were gone. Here's how we did it.

     Ingredients

• 2 cans black-eyed peas, drained, rinsed, and divided
• 1 8-oz. tub Tofutti (fake cream cheese) or regular cream cheese
• 3/4 cup corn meal
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• green pepper sauce (recipe calls for 2 tsp, but I use a lot more and eyeball it)
• 1/2 bunch green onions, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 almond milk (or soy or regular milk, but I like the almond)
• canola oil
• salt (to taste)
• pepper (to taste)
• other spices (to taste) - this is the step where you get to be creative because I'm not going to tell you what to put in there, mostly because I can't remember. I was just tossing things in willynilly 

1. Whisk together corn meal, flour, and baking soda.

2. Using a food processor or immersion blender, blend together corn meal mixture, one can of beans, green pepper sauce, milk, Tofutti, salt, pepper, and any other spices you wish.

3. Stir in second can of beans and green onions.

4. Form into 4-inch patties.

5. Heat enough oil in a large pan to coat the bottom of the pan, and fry patties 3-4 at a time. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side, or until they start to get brown and crispy.

We served them with green pepper sauce, Thai sweet chili sauce, and/or sour cream. Very popular!

12 Days of Christmas: Day Eight: Eggnog and Angel Food Cake

You know what goes hand-in-hand during the holiday season? Eggnog and angel food cake. I bet you're wondering why, dear reader. Well, I'll tell you!

I always make my own eggnog this time of year. I think it tastes better than the store-bought stuff, it's not a strange shade of yellow, and I feel comforted knowing exactly what's going into it. Plus, when people drink it, I get that praise I so crave. So a few years ago I started making egg nog, and I've pretty well perfected it by now (if I do say so myself), but one thing has always eluded me: what to do with the leftover egg whites. My recipe calls for a dozen egg yolks, leaving me with a lot of unused egg. I could make egg white omelets or some bullshit, but that's way too healthy.

So this year, for the first time, I decided to Google what to do with leftover egg whites, and I discovered that angel food cake just happens to require about a dozen of them. Hooray! So now I've got a new holiday tradition. For every batch of eggnog I make, I also have to bake a cake. Logic!

My eggnog recipe can be found on this previous post. Here's how I made the angel food cake:

Ingredients

• 1 cup cake flour (not self-rising)
• 1 cup, plus 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup egg whites (about 12 large eggs) at room temperature
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a tube or Bundt pan.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, begin to whip the egg whites on medium speed. When they become foamy, add the cream of tartar and lemon juice. The cream of tartar will act as a stabilizer for the eggs.

4. Increase the speed to high and continue to whip the egg whites until they just begin to hold their shape in soft, droopy peaks. Gradually whip the remaining sugar into the whites, 1/4 cup at a time. Do not overwhip. You want them soft and cloud-like. Just before you finish whipping, add the vanilla.

5. With a rubber spatula, gradually fold the flour mixture into the egg whites.

6. Spoon batter into pan, smooth the top, and bake for 45 minutes.

7. Remove from the oven and immediately invert the pan over a cooling rack and let it sit until cool. Then remove the pan and enjoy!

12 Days of Christmas: Day Four: Brownies in a Jar

I've been wanting to do this for a couple of years, and this crafty Christmas seemed like a good time.

Project #3: Brownies in a Jar

Mixes in a jar really appeal to me for some reason. They combine the craftiness of scratch-made food with the ease of store-bought mixes. The idea, if you've never seen it, is that you put all of the dry ingredients for a given recipe in a jar, measured out and usually layered in a decorative way. Then you give it as a gift, along with instructions for adding wet ingredients and cooking. It's like giving them brownies, except the jars keep longer and the receiver gets to share the glory of making something delicious. 

Ok, so brownies in a jar. 

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup dutched cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark)
• 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup peanut butter chips
• 1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chips

1. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. 

2. Layer ingredients in a quart-size jar in the following order: sugar, cocoa, flour mixture, peanut butter chips, and semi-sweet chips. Tap the jar a bit after each layer to allow the layer to settle. By the time you get to the chips, you might have to push everything down a bit to make it all fit. 

3. Attach a label with the following instructions and give as a gift. 

• Heat oven to 350 F.
• In a large bowl, mix 1/2 cup (1 stick) of melted and cooled butter and 2 eggs, lightly beaten, with the contents of the jar.
• Pour into greased 8x8 baking pan.
• Bake for 35 minutes. 

Here are some labels I made if you don't want to write all that out:

12 Days of Christmas: Day Three: Homemade Play-Dough

I spent a lot of time over the past few weeks agonizing over what to get my youngest nieces and nephews for Christmas. There are four of them between the ages of 1 1/2 and 5. I wanted something I could make that would be appropriate for all of them and, let's be honest, wouldn't cost a lot of money. Which led me to...

Project #2: Homemade Play-Dough

Supplies

• 1 cup flour
• 1/3 cup salt
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• food coloring

1. Mix dry ingredients (flour, salt, cream of tartar) in a 2-quart saucepan.

2. Add water and oil and heat over medium-low, stirring constantly.

3. As you stir, the mixture will start to solidify. When you notice it starting to thicken, add food coloring and mix in. It's much easier to add at that stage than waiting until it's totally cooked.

4. Keep stirring. Your arm may start to tire, but within a few minutes the mixture will thicken and start to pull away from the sides of the saucepan. You'll know it's done when it has become a blob of play-dough! It'll be easy to get out of the pan because the dough will want to stick to itself.

5. Set aside to let it cool and then store in an airtight container or plastic Ziplock bag. 

This recipe yields about 2 cups of play-dough. I made four batches, each in a different color, and then divided each batch into four half-cup servings.

Here are the things that were great about this:

• It was fast.
• It was easy.
• It wasn't expensive.
• The kids loved it. 
• The play-dough is non-toxic. 
• I can now make replacement dough for Cranium. 
• You get to play with play-dough!

Halloween Party Recipe Roundup

I just wrote a long and thoughtful post about the Halloween party I threw last Saturday, and then Blogger decided to delete it. So instead I will cut to the chase and post recipes for my two favorite dishes from that party.

Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• mozzarella string cheese
• olive oil
• 2 jars tomato sauce

Instructions:

1. Combine everything except cheese, oil, and sauce in a bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands. It's very satisfying. And gross.
2. Form mixture into 1.5" to 2" balls.
3. Cut string cheese into cubes. Put one cheese cube inside each meatball, and then reform meat to seal it in.
4. Heat some olive oil in a large skillet. I used cast iron. For flavor!
5. Brown meatballs on all sides in the oil, taking care not to horribly disfigure yourself from oil burns.
6. Set aside browned meatballs, and pour tomato sauce into the skillet and bring to a simmer.
7. Add meatballs back into the sauce, cover, and let simmer until cooked through (about 30 minutes).
8. Enjoy delicious meatballs.

As you can see in my photographic representation of the final dish, I used tons of sauce. You can probably used less, but the sauce was really good, so the more the merrier. Also, some the cheese managed to escape its meaty prison, but as the old saying goes, "Cheese tastes delicious, whether inside meatballs or out." You know that old saying, right?


Butternut Squash Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 (or 2) unbaked and chilled pie shell(s)
• 1/2 cup pureed butternut squash, about the yield of a small to medium squash
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• a dash of pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

Cooking the squash:

1. Cut the butternut squash in half lengthwise. The squash is tough and does not wish to be rent asunder, so be careful not to injure yourself trying to divide this thing. Take it slow and easy.
2. Remove seeds, and then place squash halves facedown on a cooking pan lined with greased foil, to facilitate cleanup, as the cooked squash will tend to stick. 
3. Pour 1/2 cup water into the bottom of the pan, cover loosely, then cook at 400°F for about 55 minutes, or until squash is tender. 
4. Scoop cooked squash out of its skin and puree with an immersion blender (or your preferred method of squash squashing). 
5. Set aside 1/2 cup of pureed squash. Save the rest for eating with some butter and salt, maybe. 

Assembling the pie:

1. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. 
2. In a mixing bowl, combine squash and brown sugar and beat with an electric mixer until combined. 
3. Add eggs, evaporated milk, spices, salt, flour, butter, and vanilla, and beat until well blended. Note that all the spice proportions can be modified based on your tastes, but trust me when I say this pie was hella good the way I made it. 
4. Pour filling into pie shell. I ended up having enough filling for two 9-inch shells, so I made two not-entirely-full pies. If you have a bigger shell you might be able to use all your filling on one pie, but since the shells usually come in sets of two, I recommend just making two pies. 
5. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until filling is set. After 35 minutes, I checked the pies and put crust protectors around the edges to keep the crusts from burning. If you don't have the fancy silicon crust protectors my dad bought, you can fashion some out of tin foil. Just be careful not to burn yourself on hot pie. 
6. When filling is set, remove from oven, allow to cool, then enjoy some pie. 

These pies were fantastic. I decided to make them because I was once told you could substitute butternut squash for pumpkin in a pumpkin pie recipe, and that fact intrigued me. Making pumpkin pie from scratch was an odious ordeal that I never intend to repeat. Fresh pumpkin is not worth the trouble when canned pumpkin tastes just as good. It's all about the spices, anyway. But the butternut squash was easy to cook, and it really tasted excellent.

So there you go, dear readers, maybe try out these recipes at a holiday party. You won't be disappointed!

Sabrina's Chickpea Salad

When I was in the south of France back in June (did I blog about that? Hmm...), my friends and I stayed in a luxury mobile home with a kitchenette, so we ended up cooking most of our meals to save money. It was very fun, and we made many delicious things, but one of the dishes that really jumped out at me and begged to be remembered (no offense to the other wonderful things we made) was my friend Sabrina's recipe for "Chickpea Salad." It's super easy and super delicious.

Here it is, with the measurements I used when I made it a couple of days ago:

Ingredients

• 3 cans of chickpeas, drained
• 1/2 a red onion, diced
• The juice of 1 lemon
• Olive oil
• Dried basil 

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, and then eat it. See? Simple. The olive oil and basil I just eyeballed. And with all of these ingredients, you should just play around to get the taste you want. You can also used dried mint instead of dried basil. I've never done it, but Sabrina says it's good. And presumably, you could also try it with fresh herbs. Plus, it's one of those things that's even better the second day, after all the flavors have had time to coalesce. Yum!

Vegan Spinach Artichoke Dip

Generally, I would not even entertain the idea of vegan foods. I like animal products waaaaay too much. But I have a friend who has been vegan for over a year now, and while my other friends and I make sure to mock him constantly, I recently began to think that it might behoove me to find some vegan recipes so that he can eat things that I make.

We have a lot of artichoke hearts in my house right now that my mom bought as snacks. I know, eating artichoke hearts as a snack seems weird, but they're really tasty, and I would totally snack on them, except that I can't stand the texture. It's like chewing on rubber. Or styrofoam. Either way, it's awful and I can't do it. But I thought, maybe if I puree it with other things I could enjoy the taste of artichoke without all the pesky feeling-like-I-would-rather-die-than-chew-on-that-rubbery-crap. So artichoke dip! And then wanting to make something my vegan friend could enjoy, I began searching for vegan recipes. I found this one.

Ingredients

• About 1 cup of artichoke hearts from a jar, drained
• 3 cloves of garlic (or less, I just love garlic)
• 1 can of white beans, drained
• Less than 1/4 cup sesame seeds (like maybe 1/5 cup? Just eyeball it)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup steamed spinach, chopped 
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Italian seasoning, to taste

Put the sesame seeds in a bowl, then put the beans on top of them. (This is to keep the sesame seeds from flying everywhere when you get to the next step.) Using an immersion blender (or I guess a regular blender if you don't have an immersion one) blend them until mostly smooth. Then add all the other ingredients and blend until as smooth as you want. I'm all about these easy recipes lately. Also, I discovered that if you don't add the artichokes and spinach, you essentially get homemade hummus, which is also great.

Oh! But be sure that all of your ingredients are fresh and/or haven't turned. The first batch of this I made was with sesame seeds that were about two years past their expiration date and they made the whole thing awful. I had to dump it and start again with fresh sesame seeds. The same goes for your oil and artichokes, as these things sometimes stay around in a cupboard for a while. I served the final (not expired) product with blue corn chips. It went over very well. Even with the vegans!

Further Adventures in Cheese

I didn't mention this in my last post, but the primary reason that I made that lemon basil ricotta cheese was so that I could eventually use it in the creation of stuffed shells. And not just any stuffed shells, dear readers, but Lemon Basil Ricotta Stuffed Shells in Champagne Cream Sauce. It sounds fancy because it is! I used the recipe I found on Simply Scratch, and the results were pretty good. Here are some pictures of the process:

Cooking shells while trying to make sauce 

Shells in sauce 

Shells in sauce with parmesan 

Shells in sauce with parmesan after baking 

Close-up shot 

Dinner

Overall, I'd say the shells were a success. Although I do think the sauce was a little too champagne-y. I don't think enough of the alcohol cooked off. Also, this is a recipe that really benefits from having either a sous chef or the foresight to measure out all your ingredients before you start. I tend to do it as I go, but especially when making the sauce, I really needed everything to be ready. I was all alone, trying to whisk constantly, and then I had to stop whisking to open my bottle of champagne and measure things. And this was a very complicated bottle of champagne! I didn't get a picture; just take my word for it.

Anyway, there you have it. The real gem of this dish was the cheese. I'll definitely be making that again. The sauce was a bit heavy, but I might give it another go sometime. And to keep this from becoming exclusively a food blog, maybe I'll write about something non-culinary next time. Cheers!

Self-Reflection and Cheese

Today I realized something about myself. I really enjoy cooking (I already knew this), but I think the reason for that boils down to three primary factors:

1. I love to eat.
2. I love making things (not just food, but crafting, in general).
3. I love praise. 

This last is a big inspiration for me when it comes to cooking. If I were just cooking for myself I could satisfy the first two loves, but I would be missing that all-important third factor. So I share my creations with friends and family, thereby satisfying my need for positive reinforcement. To that end, today, I made cheese! 

Cheese is surprisingly easy to make, as long as you're not hoping to end up with an aged cheddar or an authentic Italian parmesan. Easy cheese is soft and spreadable, like a ricotta, which is what I made today. And despite being pretty simple to execute, I'm quite proud of the result. 

I got this recipe from the Internet, so if you would like to recreate it, I suggest you follow this link. But for the more casual cooking enthusiast, here is a brief summary of what I did. 

First, I put a gallon of whole milk into a big pot and slowly heated it up to 185˚F, stirring frequently to keep the milk from scalding. This was also a great opportunity to finally use that candy thermometer I bought three years ago. I still haven't made candy with it, but it conveniently hooks onto the side of the pot so you can monitor the temperature as you go. 

Once the milk reached the desired temperature, I removed it from the heat and added 2/3 cup lemon juice. I used a combination of fresh and bottled. I don't think it really matters, all you really want is the acid. I guess if you can tell a flavor difference, bully for you. I then left the lemon and milk mixture undisturbed for 25 minutes, during which time I minced some basil. Once the milk was all curdled from the citric acid, I strained it through some cheese cloth. That's what it's named for, apparently! 

After it was all strained, I mixed in salt, pepper, and the zest of two lemons (hence the portion of fresh lemon juice). I then separated my cheese into two containers, one of which remained plain, while the other got the minced basil (because my dad doesn't like basil, and I didn't want him to miss out on the lemon ricotta). 

Here's the end result (with a copy of Elizabeth Bowen's The Heat of the Day in the background for artistry): 

Then I had to refrigerate it for a couple of hours; but when it was ready, my parents and three of my friends tasted it and gave me that sweet sweet praise I crave even more than I crave delicious lemon basil ricotta cheese. 

Perhaps the best thing I've ever had to drink

Back in April I was home for a few weeks and found myself hanging out with a few friends (as I am wont to do). We got to talking about Epcot's Food and Wine Festival, and one of my friends brought up a drink he had there once, which was essentially puréed kiwi and Sprite. Immediately I knew I had to have that thing. What about that doesn't sound wonderful?

So the three of us got in the car and drove directly to our local supermarket, where we purchased twelve kiwis and a bottle of Sprite. On our way out of the store, the other of my friends suggested we stop in at the liquor store next door. 'Twas there that we discovered the magical elixir that is Skyy Dragon Fruit vodka. Knowing very little about dragon fruit aside from the fact that it looks cool, we decided to purchase this vodka and incorporate it into our concoction.

Back at the house, we peeled and chopped our dozen kiwis, puréed them in the blender, and then set to work mixing our purée with the Sprite and vodka. I can't tell you the exact proportions we decided on. Mostly because I don't remember them. But play around with it. In the end, what we created is perhaps the best drink I've ever had. And just in case you think the dragon fruit vodka might have been superfluous, it was not. It was essential to the perfection of this drink. So go out, buy some kiwis and vodka, make this drink, and then tell me it wasn't one of the best things you've ever done.

The plums and oranges are unrelated. They just looked nice in the picture.

Merry After-Christmas!

Well, folks, I've been on a bit of a holiday hiatus, but I'm back now, and I have another delicious recipe to share. This Boxing Day, my mother invited my father's extended family over for a Leftovers Party. It was a brilliant idea because we got to eat all new things without actually having to make new dishes AND now I don't have to eat the same leftovers for the next week. Because they're gone. Seriously. Boxing Day Leftovers Party. Try it.

My father's family are very talented in the kitchen, so there were lots of wonderful of things to eat that day, but for me, it was all overshadowed by the dessert my cousin Shawna brought: Cookie Dough Dip with apples. This stuff is incredibly good. There's no actual cookie dough in it, so there's no concern about contracting salmonella, but it's so tasty you wouldn't know the difference. She was kind enough to leave us her recipe, and now I share it with you, dear reader. That's my Christmas gift to you.

Cookie Dough Dip

Ingredients:

• 1 8oz package of cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup toffee bits

Instructions:

1. Cream together cream cheese and butter.
2. Add all remaining ingredients and mix until well combined.
3. Serve with chocolate graham crackers or apple wedges.

It's that simple! Shawna recommends eating it with graham crackers or apple wedges. I recommend eating it with a spoon!

Christmas in Florida. Jealous?

Sorry it's been a while since I last updated. I'm back in Florida, folks, and it is glorious. You can tell it's almost Christmas because of the penguin wearing a Santa hat!

And I don't want to hear anyone complain that "it doesn't feel like Christmas" when it's 80° outside (~26° C). You want it to feel like Christmas? Drink some eggnog. I will take warmth tempered by a cool breeze over battling wind storms in Edinburgh any day.

Speaking of eggnog, I made some this weekend. It was a smash hit at the party I attended. Below you will find my recipe so you can try it for yourself. That way, you can enjoy a delicious Christmas beverage no matter how many miles per hour the wind is blowing.

Kimber's Eggnog Recipe

Ingredients:

• 12 egg yolks
• 4 cups of milk
• 4 cups of light whipping cream
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (separated)
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• Alcohol (optional)

Instructions:

1. In a saucepan, mix milk, 1/2 tsp of vanilla, cloves, and cinnamon and using the lowest heat setting, slowly bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to keep the milk from burning or developing a film.
2. In a large bowl, mix egg yolks and sugar and beat until fluffy.
3. Slowly, SLOWLY, whisk hot milk mixture into egg mixture. This part is key, because if you add the hot milk too fast, the eggs will cook and you will end up with eggnog that has the texture of scrambled eggs. The way that works best for me is to take a ladle-full of milk, dribble it into the eggs while whisking, and repeat until they are completely combined. It takes a bit of patience, but it makes all the difference.
4. Pour milk and egg mixture back into the saucepan and cook for 3 minutes on medium heat, whisking constantly.
5. Ok, here the recipe from which I have adapted mine says to let the mixture cool for an hour. I didn't do that, and my eggnog turned out fine. I imagine if you did let it cool, it would thicken a bit more. You can try it if you want, but if you're pressed for time, this step can be skipped.
6. Add cream, 2 tsp of vanilla, and nutmeg.
7. Refrigerate overnight.
8. Add alcohol if you want. I use spiced rum.
9. Serve.
10. Enjoy.