Coco-Nog!

So…how many of you are seriously carbed out from your Christmas brunch(es) and dinner(s)?  I know I am! Christmas is the one time of year where I start to crave soup.  Seriously.

And this year I wasn’t even that bad!!!  Back when I could eat all the dairy and wheat I wanted, I would spend days shoving morsel after morsel of butter-laden baked goods in my mouth every time an iota of space opened up in my stomach.  We would have our HUGE Christmas breakfast feast then head to my Gramma’s once Mum had finished making this delicious Christmas Bread Wreath thing.  Then we would spend the next two days eating ALL the carbs…

When I was 10, I thought that it might be a nice Christmas present to my parents for the bro and I to make breakfast for them.  Mum and Dad STILL talk about that first year that we made breakfast.  We made scrambled eggs, blueberry streusel, apple schnitzel, sticky buns, and I don’t even remember what else.

What I DO remember is that we made 5 different things because I used 5 different colours to colour-code the shopping list.  It was the first time I had ever put a meal plan together.  We had a CD-ROM of recipes (totally dated myself there…ooops), and a copy of a sticky bun recipe from Mum’s cousin.  I spent a couple of hours going through the recipes on the CD-ROM, selecting the ones I wanted to make, and making my shopping list.

Given the number of overlapping ingredients, I wanted to make sure that we got them all, so I put colour-coded symbols beside them which allowed me to cross-check the list with the recipes.  (Yea…I was THAT kid).  Then the bro (who was 8) and I carted ourselves off to the Valu-Mart with our backpacks, bought all the extra ingredients we needed, brought them home, and hid them in the studio fridge.  Mum and Dad actually had no idea (Mum routinely goes through about 5 or 6 dozen eggs and 6+ pounds of butter when cooking over Christmas, so the fact that there were a couple of extra dozen eggs and pounds of butter in the fridge was hardly a red flag).

On that Christmas, we woke up at 4:30 am, snuck downstairs, stared in wonder at the tree which was always left lit up over night on Christmas eve (so that Santa could find it better), and then got to work in the kitchen.  On that particular Christmas morning, we used EVERY dish in the kitchen.  It took Dad at least 3 hours after we opened presents to clean them.  But my parents didn’t complain.  They were so pleased, and so touched that they encouraged us to keep it up.  So, that’s what we’ve done, every single year since.  According to Mum, our best year was the year we made the sticky buns, which have become the staple dish, with Lobster Eggs Benedict.  I believe I also made the English Muffins that morning…

Anyway… like I mentioned, we would have our huge Christmas breakfast feast and open presents before Mum disappeared for a couple of hours to make a tasty Challah-based bread wreath thing.  By early- to mid-afternoon, we would cart ourselves off to Gramma’s.

Christmas Day dinner at Gramma’s was actually a pretty low-key affair.  I loved my Gramma dearly, but she would make this Christmas cold salad thing that had raw tomatoes, broccoli, (cooked but cold) corn, shredded cheese and white stuff on top (it was either sour cream or yogurt, or some mix of the two).  It, and the cheese and salmon balls we had for lunch all through our Christmas visit were pretty much the only low points of everything Gramma made throughout the year.  I know cheese balls are a Christmas thing and seem to be all the rage on FoodGawker, but anyone who knows me knows that I don’t do cold food.  Like, ever.  These particular dishes were cold, raw, and slimy in their own special ways, and therefore the pinnacle of ALL that is unappetizing to me.

Now, given that I would barely eat during Christmas lunch and dinner, (and I usually eat about 5 meals a day), I would be absolutely STARVING by the time we got to breakfast on Boxing Day (a.k.a. Christmas 2.0 for my family).  We would have the leftover sticky buns from Christmas 1.0, and then Mum’s wreath thing.  a.k.a. carbs and carbs.

For the rest of the day, I would eat my body weight in Cracker Jack that Gramma would always leave out as well as several pieces of toast with Grammy Jammy (i.e. my Gramma’s Strawberry Freezer Jam that she would pull out just for the bro and I to snack on every time we came to visit).  a.k.a. More carbs and carbs. Of course, this was all in an effort to avoid eating as much during the second round of the cold Christmas salad and salmon ball stuff. (I wouldn’t even TOUCH the cheese ball.)

Then came actual Christmas Dinner (but on Boxing Day)…where Gramma would make a bowl of her stuffing JUST for the bro and I to eat (but more so that everyone else could have stuffing too).  Of course, there would be goose, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, and usually something green like beans (Gramma’s dinners always featured at least 3 or 4 different veggies, many of which she had grown herself and then froze for winter).  Then there would be pie and pudding! (You know, the famous pudding I talked about a couple of weeks ago in my Christmas Pudding post!) So…carbs, goose, carbs, carbs, carbs, beans, carbs, and carbs!

The following morning, we would have porridge and finish off the Christmas wreath thing (carbs and carbs).  By late afternoon on the 27th we would be rolling ourselves into the car in a stupor, wondering what the heck we would make for dinner when we got home.  Usually, it would be pasta (carbs).  However, something in me cracked a few years ago.  Despite the fact that pasta is, and always has been my favourite food group, I had actually gotten to the point where the thought of eating more carbs just made my stomach pretty much roll over and die.  I told the ‘rents I would make my own food.   The only thing going through my mind was soup.

Every year since that one, I’ve hit December 27 (i.e. 2.5 days of eating ALL the carbs) and the only thing my stomach can fathom handling is soup; healthy soup (read: broth- and veggie-based).  The only other times in my life that I’ve craved healthy soups have been when I’ve been sick.  But soup is what I’ve made and lived on for 4 days between Dec 27 and Dec 31; ultimately prepping myself for the grand finale…Mum’s New Year’s Dinner!

Back when we lived in TO, Mum would invite a dozen people over for New Years and make a 5-course dinner; 100% egg, butter, cheese, booze, and pasta-based.  The food (and booze) was so good, I turned down all of my friends’ parties throughout high school and university, just to eat and Eat and EAT (and drink).  The company wasn’t bad either. *wink*  EACH of these dinners would start with Egg Nog!  Homemade, frothy, boozy egg nog.  I know that most people think of Egg Nog for Christmas and Christmas parties, but for me, Egg Nog is only ever drunk on New Year’s Eve.

Nowadays, our Christmases are different and slightly less carb-intense; but only slightly.  We don’t go to Gramma’s and Mum doesn’t make her Christmas wreath.  There are no cheese or salmon balls or that Christmas salad thing (thankfully Mum didn’t like them either so has only carried forward Gramma’s tasty traditions).  There is also no Cracker Jack or slices upon slices of toast with Grammy Jammy.   BUT…the bro and I still make Christmas breakfast!

This year, I had more time constraints to deal with (we had new guests this year that needed to leave by 10 am) so I couldn’t be AS fancy with the breakfast plans.  So, the plan was for the bro and I to get up at 5 am, make two different versions of sticky buns (one for culinary lepers such as myself, and the other for the normals), Eggs Benedict on Potato Waffles and Apple Fritters.

Sadly, this Christmas I had more fails than successes kitchen-wise.  The potato waffles did not waffle well, so at the last minute, we changed them over to mashed potato pancakes, which was ok, but far more dense than I would have liked, and actually kinda slimy.

As for them Apple Fritters…instead of yielding warm cinnamony-sweet puffs of happiness, my ‘apple fritters’ turned out to be depressingly-burnt globs of doughy misery with candied apple chunks falling off.  Don’t get me wrong, the flavour was all there; slightly too sweet, but there nonetheless.  It was just the texture that was all wrong.

Oh well.  You win some, you lose some right?  (On the bus back to TO today, I actually had a brainwave on how I could make pillowy apple fritters, so you guys may see them here one day.)

That being said, instead of one huge Christmas Dinner this year,  Mum spent 4 days cooking to make THREE multi-course dinners!  So…I guess I take that back.  I’m fairly carbed out by now.  Even if I can’t eat most of the food she makes, I made enough carb-based substitutes over the course of 4 days in Niagara-on-the-Lake that my stomach is just about ready to only accept soup…and Egg Nog!

Egg Nog is one of the things that I really wanted to adapt this holiday season; after Christmas Pudding and Greek-ish Christmas Cookies, that is.  I went all holiday season last year with no Egg Nog, and not drinking it while everyone else was felt like lemon, salt, sand, and every other acidic and abrasive substance being shoved in the wound that is culinary leperdom.  So…this year I researched, flipped through recipe after recipe, tested a few of them, and finally came up with a version of Coco-Nog that surprisingly tastes like a lighter version of Egg Nog!!!  Woot woot!

More to the point, this Coco-Nog SO easy to make, and only 8 ingredients (many of which most of you would have in your kitchen).  I’m hoping that means you guys will give it a shot, maybe even do a blind-tasting with your friends to see which one is which…(just make sure your guests actually are blind because the colour IS different than regular Egg Nog.)

The extra cool thing about this recipe is that it’s actually EASIER to make than regular Egg Nog.  Regular Egg Nog, usually has you make a whipped cream froth which sits on top, or is mixed in.  The very process of making this Coco-nog and then refrigerating it for an hour makes the froth for you!  Le woot!

I personally add brandy to the recipe.  Others like bourbon or rum.  I say add whichever of these you have on hand and enjoy!

Finally, I’ll point out that this recipe is totally vegan (i.e. egg- and dairy-free) AND Paleo (if you don’t add the booze)!  How many recipes can boast that?!

Ok…I’ll stop talking now.  You’ll never get to making the Coco-Nog if I don’t.  So…without further ado…*drumroll*…Coco-Nog!!!!!

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And that’s that folks!  There are no tips or tricks for this recipe.  It’s THAT easy!  So go forth, buy yourself some coconut milk and brandy (or bourbon or rum), and have yourselves a lovely New Years!

Per usual, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment below or shoot me an email!

Ciao for now!