Amanda CAARSON

It isn’t the food, (well, OK the food’s pretty great), and it isn’t the gifts. It’s eggnog. I don’t consider eggnog food. It’s in a category all by itself. I think it’s probably what the angels and the righteous drink in the World to Come, and if I have my way it’ll be served at the Messianic feast, along with lots of other goodies.

Anyway, Trep has posted his recipe again this year, and since I’ve got a mixer now, I might actually make it. So without further adeu, here’s the recipe with instruction, and some well-chosen comments.

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 2 cups milk
• 3/4 cup brandy, rum or bourbon (optional but highly recommended)

PREPARATION:

1. All liquids should be very cold. Refrigerate in advance.
2. Beat the eggs for 2 or 3 minutes with an electric mixer at medium speed until very frothy.
3. Gradually beat in the sugar, vanilla and nutmeg.
4. Turn the mixer off and stir in the cold booze, whipping cream and milk.
5. Chill some more before serving (if you can wait… I never can).
6. Sprinkle individual servings with more nutmeg.

Makes a little over 2 quarts (after taking several ‘samples’ for quality control purposes)

What are you still doing here looking at the screen?! The kitchen is that way!

I’ve decided to get started on my new year’s resolutions early. This is because I would really not like to be in the position of coming up with something at the last minute, not paying attention to what I’m resolving to do, and thus failing at it because I give it less attention than it deserves. I’ve also decided that one of the things I’m resolving to do is to write something every day. I’ve been doing this, but I haven’t posted most of it. So I’m adding a little something to that: Not only do I want to write something every day, but I want to write something that I can post to either of my sites. This is because, like anyone else, I’d love to increase my traffic, and I also think it is a great way to track my growth as a person in several areas of my life.

So where does “Doing More with Less” come into this? More is of course the writing itself. Less is the fact that I’m either using a text editor to write things first, adding all the HTML markup there and then posting it to the sites using WordPress’s “add new post function”, or using my iPad or iPhone to write stuff down as it occurs to me as well as posting from somewhere other than the computer.

I’m of course still focusing on my health, and part of the writing task I’ve set for myself is to write more frequent progress reports of that venture. I want to do this because being able to go back and look at past thoughts and progress will allow me to see how I’ve grown and what I need to improve on in this area. But they’re also fun to write. So more of those during the coming month and year.

So here’s to accomplishing goals, and working towards the ones that will take more work to accomplish. Before I end, I’d like to know, (if you’re willing to share), what goals you’ve set for yourself, and what you plan to do to accomplish them.