to use up three egg yolks

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After baking later than I should have, trying not to disappoint the birthday girl, I found myself looking at three leftover egg yolks and remembering the birthday girl had asked for egg nog earlier in the grocery store. She'd been asking for lots of stuff at the grocery store. I think she was hungry.

I drew the line (or one of the lines) at egg nog. "One year Breyers made egg-nog ice cream and it was delicious. I wish they'd do it again. But this stuff, no. At the very least it's too early. Wait until it's closer to Thanksgiving."

But egg nog was on the brain, and I remembered making it for a holiday party long ago.

I checked Joy of Cooking. There was a recipe that involved heating, in the hopes of killing the bad raw egg stuff.  Hmm, beat up egg yolks, with sugar, add nutmeg and milk and cream. Well, there's no cream, just skim milk, but with egg yolks we probably have enough fat.

The book said to use a double boiler, as if I had one, or was willing to bother with one pot inside another. Instead I used this new saucepan I'd found at Marshalls, with a blue coating that was supposed to be healthier than old-fashioned teflon. I whipped the egg yolks with an equal amount of sugar, using the covered teflon-safe whisk. I turned on the heat and poured in the skim milk. Dropped in a bit of cloves and a lot of nutmeg. The mixture turned foamy.

The recipe said to cool and strain it, but I thought, why? It would be like cocoa, nice and warm. As for straining, I don't want to get the strainer all gooky. What a pain to wash.

I poured it into a glass mug, added a generous amount of Screech rum, and, wow. It was way better than I deserved it to be. Worth repeating. Worth blogging about, in case anyone else wants to try.

Warm eggnog.

I offered the birthday girl a taste without the rum and she thought it rather nasty. I wasn't surprised. I suspected that it definitely needed the rum. The surprise was that the mixture wasn't horrible, even with rum. It was quite good. The husband agreed.

Not very good for my cholesterol count, alas.

Here's my guess at the amounts:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar (based on the size of the ramekin that held the egg yolks)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (guessing)
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg (guessing)
• 1-2/3 cups milk (since it made enough to fill two 1-cup mugs)
• a dollop of good quality dark rum for each mug. (3 tablespoons each?)

Whip egg yolks with sugar, pour into saucepan, add cloves.
Turn heat on low.
Stir in about a third of the milk. Add nutmeg. Stir in the rest of the milk. Increase heat to medium, but keep stirring. When it's nice and frothy and warm, and you think you've killed the bad egg germs, turn off heat and pour into two mugs. Add a dollop of rum to each.

Bonne nuit.