**The ~NOG BLOG~ (and the recipe is no . . . yoke!)**

Today’s Egg-less Nog has been a pampered project of mine for the past several Christmases. Even though I LOVE Egg Nog, I’ve always found the whole raw egg thing pretty disgusting . . . even before the terms “vegan” or “plant-based” meant anything to me. Don’t get me wrong . . . I still drank it for years! I just had to shove the whole icky-factor far out of my mind whenever I slogged some nog. Fast forward to about ten Christmases ago (when my hubby and I were only two months into our “plant-based journey”) and we just decided to go without Egg Nog that holiday season as well as for the following three years. It wasn’t until about six or seven Christmases back that I finally got it into my noggin to get . . . nogging and make my own Egg-less Nog! Honestly, how hard could it be?

The first year I followed a recipe I found, and it was ok. It tasted somewhat like Egg Nog . . . but it had sort of a soapy aftertaste. No matter though . . . we were desperate wannabe vegans who had no idea what we were doing, so most of the food we were making those days was sub-par anyway. And so we continued to drink slightly soapy Egg-less Nog for a couple of Christmases until one year I had a happy accident that made our nog come out of it’s shell for good .

By the way, I don’t always have happy accidents, but when I do . . . I blog about them:

One year the spice rack at the grocery store was sold out of ground nutmeg and I was forced to buy whole nutmeg seed pods. I had no idea what even to do with them, but soon learned that they work with ease on a lemon zester. I added the freshly grated nutmeg hopefully to our nog and then took a surprising sip! Just like that, the case of the soapy Egg-less Nog was . . . cracked. As it turns out . . . ground nutmeg in a spice jar JUST. TASTES. SOAPY. Freshly grated nutmeg seed pods, on the other hand, are full flavor without that processed nutmeg note of detergent that I’m not so nutty about.

In fact, freshly grated nutmeg is so heavenly that we at once were inspired to give our Egg-less Nog a new, more worthy name: NUTMEG NOG. After that, our nog fog sort of lifted and we began tinkering with other parts of the original recipe. Our nog was deliciously nutmeggy now but it wanted to be a little creamier . . . probably cause it lacked . . . uhh . . . cream. So we added a can of coconut milk and that did the job brilliantly. Then one day I was watching America’s Test Kitchen and one of the chefs added lemon juice to a wild rice soup recipe, which I found odd. She simply said: “a tablespoon of lemon just brightens the dish.” In that moment I had a Christmas inspiration: may your days be merry and . . . bright! Now we have a main-squeeze lemon law at our house, nog included.

And that, dear reader, is the short history behind this nog blog and recipe. However you are spending this holiday week, we think this vegan Nutmeg Nog will make it even better.

Why we love our Nutmeg Nog:

~dairy-free~

~egg-free~

~made frosty with frozen bananas (talk about nutritious)~

~made rich and creamy with coconut milk (talk about delicious)~

~flavored with freshly grated nutmeg (talk about fortuitous)~

~sweetened with maple syrup instead of sugar (talk about syruptitious)~

~mere minutes to make~

Frosted Vegan Nutmeg Nog

Difficulty: EASY

Active Time: 10 minutes

Yields: 6-8 glasses of Nutmeg Nog

Ingredients:

5 overripe bananas (we’re talking like peels covered in brown spots) cut in chunks and frozen over night
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 can coconut milk
4 cups unsweetened almond milk
2 tsp unpacked freshly zested nutmeg or 1 tsp packed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
*optional* 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Supplies needed:

Vitamix or other high-powered blender
measuring spoons & cup measure

Directions:

1.) Freeze over-ripe bananas: the bananas pictured above are NOT ripe enough yet. Just ripe bananas taste very . . . banana-y. Over-ripe bananas when blended with other ingredients end up just tasting very sweet. This is what you want. Let the bananas get covered in brown spots. Then cut in chunks and freeze them in an airtight container overnight.

2.) Zest nutmeg