From Our Kitchen: Eggnog Pie

As I am sure we are all out there making final preparations for our holiday meals next week, I thought I would share a delicious Christimastime dessert (that, if you recall, I in fact made for Thanksgiving!) as inspiration for next week's festivities. If your household is anything like ours, you have probably drunk your weight in eggnog this Christmas season, so it is only appropriate that you now try your hand at an eggnog pie! The best part about this pie (I mean, aside from the fact that it is delicious!)? It is a no bake pie! Completely homemade, no baking. I mean, that's awesome, right?

What You'll Need for the Crust:

• 10 tbsp butter, melted
• 2 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 3 tbsp light brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

What You'll Need For the Filling:

• 1 quart eggnog (I recommend the Southern Comfort brand of eggnog - by far my favorite!)
• 2 (5.1 oz each) packages of vanilla instant pudding mix
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

What You'll Do:

1. Melt your butter in a large mixing bowl, and add your graham cracker crumbs.
2. Mix in your brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, and stir until well combined.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Spray a 9 inch pie pan, and place your crust mixture into the pan. Begin pressing down to form the crust along the bottom and sides of the pan.
   
   
   
   
4. Place the crust into the refrigerator to set while you mix together your filling (don't worry - it only needs to set for just a few minutes - roughly the time it takes for you to put together the filling). 
5. In a large mixing bowl, blend together your vanilla pudding mixes and eggnog. Mix well. Add in your cinnamon and nutmeg, and continue to mix until mixture begins to thicken
   
   
   
   
6. Get your crust back out of the refrigerator. Pour filling mixture into crust. At this point, you can garnish with whipped cream, cinnamon, or, as I did, some graham cracker sprinkles on top. Cover with plastic wrap, and place back into refrigerator until ready to serve. Enjoy!
   
   
   

Credit to original recipe

Pre-Thanksgiving

Can you hardly believe that Thanksgiving is tomorrow?! I am so excited, and also really amazed that it is here already! This year, Harris & I are going to be staying home and enjoying our first Thanksgiving as a married couple. While it would be super nice to be able to share the time with our extended families, we are really looking forward to starting some of our own traditions this year (that do not involve cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner in one crockpot I'm looking at you Thanksgiving 2012!).

To kickoff the holiday season, we are going tomorrow to get our first live Christmas tree! I am super excited about this. Growing up, we always had artificial trees, as I am pretty sure was the norm for everyone I knew. I have vague memories of being about 3 years old and my Nana & Poppy having a real tree back then, but the majority of my life has been spent in Christmas tree artifice.

There is a decent possibility that I have gone a little Christmas Crazy in the ordering of new ornaments, an extravagant new tree skirt, lights, new family stockings, and so on and so forth, but I just can't help myself! It is so darn fun and I am so excited about our first holidays as The (capital T required) Ligons.

Now, I know I am being just as bad as all the marketing folks at our favorite stores right now and completely skipping over Thanksgiving to talk about Christmas, but I really am excited about Thanksgiving. I am baking a turkey breast and making all of our favorite side dishes (dressing & gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, butter beans, homemade bread (for leftover turkey sandwiches, as Harris requested)). I am also trying out a recipe for an eggnog pie. Now, I know, I know, eggnog is really for Christmas. But we loooove eggnog, and it gets so little time on the calendar, and, well the pie looked yummy, and, well there you have it. I will let you know how this all goes!

Here's to all of us getting our fill of turkey and pumpkin and Macy's parades and football and naps! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!