Mmmmm, Eggnog

Mmmmmm, eggnog, how I love thee. Rich creamy yumminess. It's amazingly easy to make. I don't cook my eggnog but if I used commercial eggs I probably would. My hens have tested negative for salmonella so I'm not worried about that. You can heat the milk and cream until it's steamy and slightly frothy and add the beaten eggs to it stirring constantly to thicken it up more. I prefer my eggnog cold though. If I want a warm drink I make a Tom and Jerry, which is very similar in taste but it's warm and has fewer eggs in it.

So here's my recipe. Feel free to take plenty of liberties with it.

1 cup heavy cream
1 quart whole milk
3/4 cup sugar, divided
5 egg yolks, beaten
5 egg whites
3 oz bourbon or dark rum (I prefer a really good spiced rum such a Kilo Kai)
1 tsp ground nutmeg

Combine cream, milk, 1/2 cup sugar and yolks in a pitcher. Stir until sugar dissolves and yolks are incorporated.

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add sugar and beat until glossy. Fold whites into above mixture. Stir in alcohol and nutmeg. Sprinkle a bit of nutmeg on top and serve cold.

What I really like about this eggnog is that it isn't heavy handed with the alcohol. I normally don't like alcohol in my eggnog just because it always seems to be too much. This recipe is perfectly balanced. You can still taste the alcohol but it doesn't overpower the eggnog.

Weeks 10 and 11 - Yeah, I forgot

Mmmm, Homemade Eggnog

Holy cow! I forgot to post this last week!

Week 10

Sunday -
My mom is back in town and took us to our favorite Mexican Restaurant. Boy was that good!

Monday -
French Onion Soup with farmers' market onions and homebaked bread. Eggnog for dessert!

Tuesday -
Homemade gnocchi from farmers' market potatoes and tomato sauce from our harvest. Eggnog for dessert!

Wednesday -
BBQ chicken pizza with mushrooms and grilled onions from the farmers' market.

Thursday -
Tom had inventory at work so I made a stirfry thing from this bag we had in the freezer for at least 6 months. More on that later.

Friday -
Tom made chicken soup with George's carcass. I was at a cooking class with my best friend and her office (holiday party I was invited to because I do some work for them) learning how to make authentic Indian food. Yum!

Saturday -
Grassfed beef fajitas with mushrooms and onions from the farmers' market, homemade tortillas and guacamole (ingredients from the farmers' market) with spanish rice (tomato sauce from our tomatoes that we processed, onions from farmers' market).

Week 11

Sunday -
Grassfed beef steaks with a Zhug rub from the spice market. Served with mashed sweet potatoes from our garden and cranberry sauce. Individual apple crisps for dessert.

Monday -
Salisbury steak with grassfed ground beef, mushrooms and onions from the farmers' market with peas from our garden. Jeanette offered up some of her mac and cheese as a side.

Tuesday -
Grassfed Meatloaf with potatoes, carrots and turnips from the farmers' market. Served with homemade, canned ketchup.


Wednesday -
I was soooo not hungry. We had a holiday potluck at work. I made handmade gnocchi with marinara from our canned tomatoes. Tom ended up having stirfry from whatever veggies we had hiding in the fridge.

Thursday -
Tom's holiday office party took care of our meal for this night.

Friday -
Roast chuck roast with potatoes and spinach from the garden. Rice pudding for dessert.

Saturday - 
Green chili stew from tomatillos from our garden. Pastured pork from the butcher. Veggies from the farmers' market.

Reflections-
These next couple of weeks are going to be interesting. Mostly because the farmers' market, which runs on Saturdays will not be open for the next two weekends, which means we won't have a regular source for food for the next 3 weeks. The produce stand we sometimes go to is also closed for the season. We did buy a lot of extra food yesterday at the farmers' market and made sure that most of it lasts a long time so hopefully we're good. I am worried that we didn't get enough onions. 

Why We're Doing This - Reason #6

I can't stress enough how IMPORTANT it is to know your farmer and your food. One of the biggest things that has changed for us is where our meat comes from. All of our meat now, if we don't raise it ourselves, comes from hunting (pheasants and geese from Jeanette) or is pasture raised and slaughtered humanely usually in the form of ranch kill. Ranch kill is done, as the name implies, at the ranch, where the animal is at home. It is less stressed and their death is much more humane and quick. The meat is much more expensive, however, we are now eating less of it and with the other changes we have made in our diet we are still spending less on food than we were when we were buying junk from the grocery store.

Recently an undercover HSUS investigator went to a pig farm owned by a subsidiary of Smithfield. Here's a short video that I think everyone should watch. You can also read more about it here.

Why We're Doing This: Reason #5

I haven't posted in awhile about food politics so here's a good one. Some companies, like Kellogg's (who also refuses to eliminate GMOs from their foods) refuses to remove cancer-causing dyes from their food. However, they have removed it from their products in European countries. Apparently their food safety regulations are a lot stronger there and actually watch out for their citizens. You can read the article here.

So How Difficult Is It?

The first question everyone asks us when we share what we're doing with them is "so how hard is it?"

It's ridiculously hard.

No, actually it's not. For some reason people think it takes a lot of time and effort to eat real food that we prepare ourselves. I wrote a post about time management over on Dog Island Farm that can give you a peek into just how much time we spend growing/raising food.

In all honesty, we do spend quite a bit of time preparing food, whether it's for dinner, or creating handmade snacks and baking. But I don't see it as spending too much time on it. What else are most people doing with their time? Watching TV? Playing video games? Surfing the internet?

I recently came across this article thanks to farmCurious. The premise is that studies have shown that the harder we work for food the better we perceive it tasting and therefore the more satisfying it is so we eat less of it. If you consider the obesity problem in the U.S. and how it correlates today to how accessible food, particularly unhealthy food, is to us now it make sense. We can just throw something pre-processed into a microwave or pick it up through the fast food drive thru window. We keep eating it because it's just not satisfying us.

There are other benefits to preparing our own food of course. We know what's in it. We can avoid corn, soy and all of their derivitives. No need to try and pronounce the names of the chemicals, preservatives, flavors or colors.

Another bonus is that I'm becoming a much better cook and baker. Nothing like actually doing it to learn how to become good at it.

So for us, the little bit of extra time we spend preparing meals is more than worth it.

Week 9 - Let's Get Serious

Sunday-
Eggs in a Nest: Swiss Chard and Garlic from our garden sauteed with onions from a produce stand topped with our hens' eggs served with rice and a mash of sweet potatoes from our garden.

Monday-
Pastured heritage pork, sauteed potatoes, onions and brussels sprouts from the produce stand.

Tuesday-
Falafel with homemade tortillas, tahini sauce (sesame seeds from the spice merchant), and tzatziki sauce (homemade yogurt with limes and cucumbers from the produce stand). The falafel was made from canned garbanzo beans that we've had for months, though we do have garbanzos that we grew in our garden.

Wednesday-
Grass fed beef and rice stew with carrots, peppers and onions from the produce market.

Thursday-
Handmade pheasant stuffed raviolis with a creamy whiskey sauce. Mmmmmm. It's great having a hunter stay with us because our freezer is full of game. For dessert we had homemade eggnog with some dark rum (not homemade).

Friday- 
George. Our first chicken that we raised and slaughtered ourselves. He was D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S. He wasn't the "rubberbands" that people told us he would be. He was surprisingly tender and flavorful. Best roasted chicken I've ever eaten. Because he wasn't a Cornish X, but instead a Black Austrolorp, he wasn't overly muscled like Cornish X birds are. We had him with roasted potatoes and turnips from the produce stand and sauteed cabbage and cauliflower from the produce stand.

Saturday -
We went to a friends' house to celebrate my mom being in town. We brought a Buffalo chuck roast that we had bought at a bison ranch in Wyoming and lettuce from our garden for the salad. Potatoes were also served.

Reflections-
We're nearing the end of our supplies that we had from before we started. We had also noticed that we were eating a LOT more bread and bread-like foods so this week we decided to focus more on fresh fruits, vegetables and meat. I feel better about that. Our meals were more varied. The unfortunate part was that some of our meals this week didn't give us a chance to have leftovers for the following day's lunch.

The Hair Trial

Back in September I wrote about using baking soda and vinegar on my hair as shampoo and conditioner. I figured it's about time I update you all about how it's going.

The first thing I've noticed is that my hair is so much softer and shinier than before. There's never any product buildup either. The biggest bonus though is that my hair color (I dye my hair if you missed the first post) stays true much longer. I use non-permanent color and my roots are growing out and my color still hasn't faded.

As for the oily hair - it's still oily and usually in the winter it's extra oily. The baking soda gets rid of it just like shampoo, but it doesn't stay away any longer than with shampoo.

My hair is a lot healthier though. It doesn't break as much anymore and I don't have any split ends even though I blow dry.

So would I recommend using baking soda and vinegar? Yes! It's so much healthier not just for your hair but also for you. It doesn't have the chemicals and irritants that commercial shampoo and conditioner contain.