Eggnogged Eggs, and Other Things to Do with Extra Eggnog

I used to have this problem with eggnog: Sue and I would always buy a quart of it, and then we’d each have a few small cups of it while we decorate the Christmas tree, or whatever, and then the rest of it would sit there in the refrigerator until it needed to be thrown away. (You know: Before it develops the ability to walk away on its own!)

Well, I’ve fixed that problem in recent years by using “nog” creatively as a flavoring ingredient in dishes that usually would take just milk. Yes, it’s got more fat than your standard 2 percent, blah, blah, blah . . . but I hate throwing away food. It’s a frugality thing. It makes me feel guilty to throw out food.

So here is one of my favorite ways to use up extra eggnog: scrambled eggs!




(By the way, note the lovely carton of Central Dairy Egg Nog: they haven’t changed the package design for as long as I can remember! I love the artwork! It easily dates back at least to the late 1960s.)

I don’t need to give you a recipe here—you just make regular scrambled eggs, only you use eggnog instead of the usual milk (or water). It makes for creamy eggs that are indeed rather sweet. I usually garnish with a bit of nutmeg. Or I’ll whisk some extra nutmeg into the eggs, and then garnish with freshly chopped parsley.

These are really, really good! Sue loves them.




They go well with our usual decadent Christmas breakfast—say, with good Burger’s ham, and with a slice of Christmas stollen. (By the way, my picture shows pieces of two stollens: one from Aunt Carole, which is about as healthy and low-fat as a stollen can be, and one from my sister-in-law, Karla, which is much more traditional. Both are awesome!)

I also like to serve grapefruit halves for Christmas breakfast. (I garnish them with a Maraschino cherry and with a drizzle of some of the cherry juice instead of plain sugar.)

This is all pretty sweet, but not overly so. The “eggnogged eggs” and the ham are sweet-salty, and the grapefruit is sweet-sour. Even the stollens combine sugary sweetness with the richer sweetness of candied fruits.

More Ideas

This morning, I made our oat bran muffins with eggnog as the liquid. Yeah, I added some extra nutmeg, and I even threw in a little rum! For extra appeal, I included a little handful of carob chips. Sue said the muffins tasted like candy. Wow!

And of course, you could make pancakes with eggnog, too. Then you wouldn’t need to add butter or use much syrup. Just some cooked apples would be enough.

Or, you could decorate your bowl of oatmeal with a bit of eggnog, the way you might add milk or cream.

Or! You could have a lot of friends and family over some evening for Christmas cookies and conversation. That’s another way to use up a quart of the stuff!

. . . Lots of possibilities! Now you never again will have to pour chunky old eggnog down the drain!