Skinny Eggnog

Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday. That's why, once Thanksgiving is over, I decorate immediately. It's an attempt to get as much Christmas out of this holiday season as possible. For the last two years we have spent the day after Thanksgiving decorating our condo. I'm trying to make it a tradition.

I have to admit though, it doesn't take too long to decorate our condo. Being that we are newly married, we haven't had too much time to collect very many decorations. Most of the decorations we have are from my parents. We also don't have matching stockings. Well, they match meaning they look similar to each other, but Joe's is much bigger than mine.

When I ordered them online, I swear Pottery Barn did not mention that the red stocking was bigger than the white stocking. Joe made me feel better about the whole thing, saying his is bigger because he is the boy. I can live with that.

Most of our ornaments on our tree are also ones we were given by my parents. Last year, Joe's nieces came over to see our tree, and one asked me why there weren't very many ornaments on it, so my mom let me take quite a few of her ornaments last Christmas to fill the tree out alittle bit more. My family has a tradition where whenever we go on a trip we always buy a Christmas ornament to commemorate it. Those are always my favorite ornaments, because they always bring me back to the good times my family has spent together. When my mom asks me which ornaments I want off the tree, those are usually the ones I take. This is a tradition I plan to keep doing with Joe, and the two ornaments that are my favorite are the oraments Joe and I received on the trips we have taken together. My favorite is from the Caymen Islands, where we went on our honeymoon.

 

  My second favorite is the one we received when we went to Hawaii for my sister, Hillary's wedding.

Another part of the day that I'm trying to make a tradition is to make a special Christmas drink every year that we can have while we decorate. Last year, I made spiked apple cider. This year I was determined to make egg nog. Joe asked why we don't just buy the egg nog, but I heard it is so much better if you just make it.

My brother in law, Mike, makes the best egg nog. I thought about asking him for his recipe, but when I found this recipe for skinny eggnog online, I thought I would try it. Considering all the eating we have been doing and will be doing this Holiday season, I figured it couldn't hurt to make something alittle less fattening.

I made two slight alterations to the recipe. First, the recipe calls for using an actual vanilla bean. To me that sounded like alittle too much work for the day after Thanksgiving, so I used vanilla extract. Second, the original recipe also calls for 1 % milk, but I ended up using skim (because that is what I buy). Both of these alterations the original author of the recipe said was ok.

Skinny Eggnog
adapted from skinny taste

3 cups skim milk
1 Tbs vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
nutmeg for garnish
rum or bourbon

Heat 2 1/2 cups of the milk on medium heat. Add the vanilla extract and let simmer. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and cornstarch.

Temper the eggs by pouring the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture about a cup at a time and whisking constantly. This is to avoid cooking the eggs. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, heat over medium heat, and stir constantly for about 6-7 minutes. Remove from heat, and pour in the remaining 1/2 cup of milk to stop the cooking.

Let cool and then pour into a pitcher. Chill. Spike with bourbon or rum. We used rum because we had plenty left over from when I attempted to make tiramisu a few weeks ago. Attempted is the key word. If you can't find marscapone, don't let someone convince you you can make your own by mixing cream cheese and cream. Doesn't turn out well.

 Can you guess who drank out of which mug?

Merry Christmas season everyone!