Tony's Graduation and Christmas #1

Whew! It has been a busy few weeks!! My wonderful husband has finally finished his M.P.A. (Master's in Public Administration), so with graduation being December 19th and the in laws coming for this momentous occasion, we decided to combine it and celebrate an early Christmas with them! It was so great to see them since we don't get to see them very often. And of course, there was a ton of food and cooking to be done! I made the 13.2 lb turkey I won at last month's Turkey Trot. I made it the usual way my family makes turkey, covered it in poultry seasoning, added 1 12 oz bottle of Corona in the pan as well as 1 12 oz can of chicken broth, 1 stick of butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Then covered it all with foil and let it cook at 325 for 4 hours. After it was done, I took the foil off and brushed on some melted butter and let it brown about 10 more minutes. The rest of the trimmings were mostly from cans, except my mashed potatoes, those were homemade. We stuffed ourselves Friday night and then settled in for presents and cake and eggnog! Tony's parent's gave us the cutest ornament for our tree that they got a local craft fair, I LOVE it!!

Then it was time for cake and eggnog. Tony, being the guest of honor, got to pick what kind of cake he wanted me to make him. Of course, he picked chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Normally, I make cakes with a box mix, but this time I decided to try something new and went ahead and made the whole thing from scratch! I pulled out my Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics  and got to work on the Moist Devil's Food Cake.

Here's our graduate with the cake, I piped on the words using leftover blue frosting from the cookies:

And then it was eggnog time! My family always makes homemade eggnog every year, except we always put the bourbon in the nog when making it, but Tony's parents don't drink, so I made it without and just let those that wanted to add liquor to add it themselves.

Eggnog:

6 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 cups bourbon

1 quart whole milk

1 pint heavy whipping cream

1. Separate eggs, beat yolks until creamy (I put them in my Kitchen Aid on 6 for about 3 minutes). Add sugar, mix to creamy, another 3-5 minutes. Add bourbon, mix until sugar dissolves; then let the mixture sit in a large bowl.

2. Beat egg whites until thick. I used my Kitchen Aid and beat on 8 for about 3-5 minutes, basically until the egg whites form peaks. Fold egg whites into the other mixture. Add milk, just pour the whole quart in.

3. Beat heavy cream until thick, the thickness of the cream will determine the thickness of the nog, so do this to your liking, I like mine kind of thick, so I beat the cream until it made whipped cream and the peaks stood on their own when the beater was removed. Pour the cream into the nog. Gently stir.

4. Half the mixture into 2 bowls, freeze one and refrigerate the other. The next day mix the two together and grate some nutmeg over it, or be lazy like me and just sprinkle some already ground nutmeg in there to your liking.

I skipped adding the bourbon since as I said before my in laws don't drink, but it still came out delicious, the only thing was the half in the freezer froze over without the liquor in there, so I had to let it sit out for about an hour for it to thaw out to be able to mix the two together.

So, the next morning was hubby's graduation, so we got all dressed up and headed on downtown. It was a little nippy out, about 30 degrees or so, but colder with the wind chill, so walking downtown was not too enjoyable, but luckily we cut through the Peabody and took this awesome photo in front of their huge Christmas tree!

Finally some pics of the graduate!

 

Then it was off to the Pig 'N' Whistle for some authentic Tennessee BBQ and a nice relaxing afternoon evening. The in laws are now gone, but we had a great visit with them! We can't wait to see them again in June for Pat and Heather's wedding (Tony's brother and his fiancee)! Now I just need to get ready for Aunt Tara's arrival on Wednesday and a nice low key Christmas! Merry Christmas to all of you and I wish you all the best in the 2010!!