No holiday season is complete without Eggnog in our house! Starting at thanksgiving I get cravings for it. I usually like mine nonalcoholic but on a cold winters day some spiked eggnog can totally warm your bones!

Normally I’ll just buy the nonalcoholic stuff from the grocery store but I am also a sucker for making stuff from scratch. Here is my recipe to make Eggnog from scratch if you are feeling up to it:

Eggnog Recipe

I found via this source.

• 4 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
• 1 pint whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 ounces bourbon
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 4 egg whites

First, beat the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the 1/3 cup sugar and continue to beat until it is completely dissolved. Add the milk, cream, bourbon and nutmeg and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl take the egg whites and beat till soft peaks form. Gradually add the 1 tablespoon of sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.

Whisk the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. Chill and serve.

For cooked eggnog, follow this procedure: Beat the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the 1/3 cup sugar and continue to beat until it is completely dissolved. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, over high heat, combine the milk, heavy cream and nutmeg and bring just to a boil, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and gradually temper the hot mixture into the egg yolk and sugar mixture. Then return everything to the pot and cook until the mixture reaches 160 degrees F. Remove from the heat, stir in the bourbon, pour into a medium mixing bowl, and set in the refrigerator to chill.

In a separate medium mixing bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks. Gradually add the 1 tablespoon of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Whisk the egg whites into the chilled egg yolk mixture.

Hot Toddy Drink Recipe

This is a drink recipe perfect for my mother and mother in law. You see my mom loves brandy and my MIL loves tea. A hot toddy combines both brandy and tea to make a warm, festive drink. To make this drink you’ll need:

• 1 tbsp honey
• 3/4 glass tea (fruit flavored tea is good)
• 2 shots brandy (fruit flavored brandy is my choice)
• 1 slice lemon

To whip up the drink simply brew tea and fill a tall glass 3/4 full. Mix in honey and brandy shots. Then garnish with a lemon slice and enjoy! Super easy to make and will be sure to warm your bones in no time.

What are your favorite drinks of the season?

For more drinks of the season check out these posts: More Drinks of the Season Recipes

The post Winter weather drink recipes favorites: Hot Toddy & Egg Nog appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

He was surprised when he took his first drink because of how different it tasted. Very much fermented with a hint of vinegar. He had me try it too, I wasn’t a fan but he managed to finish his entire bottle that day.

Kombucha is a probiotic rich, fermented tea beverage. It is considered a raw food that is beneficial because of all the probiotics and antioxidants that it contains. It’s great for digestive health and is also said to be a powerful detoxing beverage.

It contains lots of essential vitamins such as folic acid, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, vitamin B1, vitamin B3, vitamin B12. It also contains antioxidants including EGCG, Glucuronic Acid, Lactic Acid & Acetic Acid. Bacillus coagulans & S. Boulardii are the probiotic organisms it typically contains.

After discovering firsthand how beneficial kombucha can be I decided I wanted to try to making my own because frankly it’s expensive stuff. Plus, our household is no stranger to fermented or brewed beverages. Turns out making your own is quite easy too!

Here’s how to grow your own starter:

Kombucha starter is as easy as one bottle of organic raw kombucha that is unsweetened combined with 1 cup of room temperature sweetened tea (can be black tea or green tea). All you do is pour your bottle of kombucha into a glass jar, then you add your cup of sweetened tea.

Some notes:

• Be sure to sterilize the jar that you’ll use to make your kombucha starter in first!
• Cover your glass jar with a towel so it can breathe and so it stays contaminant free. I chose to rubber band a towel over the lid. Then place your jar in a warm place to grow.
• People in colder climates will need to wait longer than those in warmer climates for their starter to grow as the warmth of the liquid lends to the sugars being consumed and thus growing the starter.

Your kombucha starter, known as a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast), a Mother, mushroom, etc. grows at the top of your liquid overtime.

In the beginning it looks like a thin-film but it slowly thickens as your jar of liquid sits. Once it is about a quarter of an inch thick you can get started making your own homemade kombucha.

You can find the subsequent Kombucha recipe here.

The post Kombucha: Digestions Friend & How You Can Grow Your Own Kombucha Starter. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

We are stoked to have a much longer growing season here, we can grow more fun stuff now. We have things like corn, zucchini, tomato, peppers, basil, lettuce, parsley, cucumber, melon, beans, peas, egg plant and collard greens going out there right now.

This last weekend we had quite a few zucchini that were harvested and some bushy collard green plants so I went looking for some recipes. Since transplanting to the Midwest I’ve discovered I like southern style collard greens but we’ve been failing at cooking them. Turns out it is all in the stock!

I found this recipe for Tasty Collard Greens that calls for simmering in chicken stock for an hour as opposed to sauteing them. Who knew the chicken stock simmer would make such a huge difference? It turned out amazing.

N also had a hankering for Stuffed Zucchini which was also very tasty! We used some leftover homemade spaghetti sauce that N’s dad made while they were visiting us right after Everly’s birth. It was so good over the zucchini.

Now we are looking for ideas and recipes for all the fresh cucumbers we’ve got. I don’t want to make a million jars of pickles, we’ll make a few but I would also like to make some other things with them. Any ideas?

The post Enjoying homegrown goodness, from my garden to my table. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Calls for tablespoons of sugar, flour (specifically cake flour), cocoa powder, milk, oil and an egg. Seems simple enough but then you microwave it. Sort of strange if you ask me but what the heck?

So I combine my all purpose flour (didn’t have cake flour, is there a difference?) , sugar, cocoa and the egg.

Then I added the milk and oil and mixed the heck out of it as directed.

Popped the mug in to the microwave and stood back. Our microwave makes this strange sound when you nuke stuff, like it’s got a radiation malfunction or something. I never stand near it because of the sound. I am paranoid. LOL. Plus if the cake exploded I didn’t want hot nuked batter all over me.

When 3 min were up I took out my creation and inspected it, looks questionable. It has solidified though, I guess it could be good. Looks strange though, see…

Once it cooled, it came out of the mug and on to a plate. It had all these air bubbles and was a strange consistency from the looks of it. Still to soon to know if it is good though, the darn thing is piping hot!

I slathered some frosting on it, I tasted it and cut it in half for N and I to have after dinner. Upon first taste It wasn’t bad. When I cut it in half though it was pretty brick like.

I think it came out pretty dense and not as fluffy as I would have liked (you know like normal cakes). I bet it was the flour, had I used this flour substitution guide (or the flour they called for in the recipe) I would have been better off.

I had a few bites and was done, N ate his whole half. See, he always eats my bad food because he doesn’t want to make me feel bad. LOL.

It was a fun thing to test out but it did not cure my preggo cake craving. I guess I am a cake snob or something. Today I’ll make brownies to try satisfying that chocolate urge of mine since I seem to be bursting with energy.

I used that energy burst to get my bags packed and am just about ready to leave for The Farm this weekend. I am going to an Evansville BirthNetwork Meeting on Thursday to meet with some fellow mama’s, get some support for my upcoming delivery and to meet the local La Leche League leader.

Only base we haven’t covered is finding a pediatrician in the area for when we are home from The Farm and ready to think about vaccinations (oy). Oh and Gabby is finally out of heat and done with the pissing (I think), woot. We’ve gotta get her fixed after Tater arrives, her and Boner!

The post Really, 5 min cake in a mug? You becha! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

I searched high and low for a good from scratch pot pie recipe and kept coming across the call for “crescent rolls” as the “pie crust”. To me from scratch is not buying premade crap and throwing it together guys. I mean what are people going to do if the store runs out of crescent rolls for any extended amount of time?

Anyway, I finally found a recipe I thought sounded good and boy was I right, it was great! I did modify it a bit because it was way to sticky and wet when made as directed. If you are interested here is the recipe.

Pie Crust Recipe

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/4 cup lard
• 1/3 cup water

Mix the flour and the salt in a large bowl. Add the butter or margarine and lard; mix with hands until crumb like texture is achieved. Mix in the water. Here, I came to the consensus that the dough was way to wet so I fixed it by adding in one tablespoon at a time of flour until it balled up in the mixer and looked like dough again. Then you pat it into a ball, and wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate for at least two hours.

Yesterday while the pie was a cooking we busted out the old school Nintendo that I got as a birthday present a few years back. I know it is ancient but I love it some much, common you know you do too! Oh, but I still do suck at it…

Other than Nintendo and pie crusts we are also worried about our first ice storm! Word is we are supposed to get a pretty bad one this whole week and we could be without power for a few days…Now what are you supposed to do to prepare for an ice storm? I have no freaking clue!

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