Winter’s Favorite Giveaway Day 12

Thanks, Kelly, for having me on today!

I wanted to share with your readers a very special recipe I make for the holidays.

If you’ve read my books, you’ll notice there’s usually an important scene that revolves around food. It might be a sexy scene, one where secrets are revealed, or just two people getting to know each other. For instance, in Enchanted By Blood, my story in the anthology A VAMPIRE FOR CHRISTMAS, Trace and Charlotte first talk at an all-night diner over coffee and stale doughnuts.

Food connects us to our past and helps keep memories alive. My grandma used to make this wonderful Eggnog Pie for the holidays. I’m thankful she contributed her recipe to the Cedar Creek Grist Mill Cookbook, published in 1991, because otherwise, I wouldn’t have had it.

Several years after she passed away, I was missing her and made the pie for my grandpa at Thanksgiving, using my own chickens’ eggs. It made him so happy that I started making it for all the holidays.

Gommo’s original recipe calls for making a regular pastry crust. I did that at first but found we all preferred a graham cracker crust. Sorry, Gommo! (Even Poppo liked it this way too.) It’s even easier.

1 tsp. Knox gelatin
1 Tbsp. water
1 c. milk
1/2 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
Pinch of salt
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. heavy cream, whipped
Nutmeg
1 graham cracker crust pie shell

1. Soak gelatin in the water to soften. Set aside.
2. Scald milk in top of double boiler.
3. Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt. Add to scalded milk and cook until smooth, stirring constantly.
4. Stir small amount of hot mixture into the eggs to temper them, then return to the double boiler and cook three to four minutes longer, stirring constantly with a whisk.
5. Remove from heat. Add gelatin mixture and butter. Whisk till smooth. Cool.
6. Add vanilla. Fold whipped cream into custard mixture. Pour into pie shell and sprinkle with nutmeg. Chill pie until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

You can find Laurie here: Website | Facebook | Twitter

12 Things I Love about Winter

Born and raised in Chicago where winter not only nips your nose but your ass straight through your jeans, you better believe a girl like me has to find joy in

winter or just altogether die from it.  I prefer to find joy in it and what better way than by sharing it with the world.  So in honor of what we know to be the 12 days of Christmas,

I’m doing my own version of 12 Things I Love about Winter.

1.)  I can stay in the house, remain dressed in flannel Pj’s, write and drink tons of hot chocolate spiked with hazelnut and vodka without coming across as a slob, a recluse and an alcoholic.

2.)  I can wear a warm, fuzzy hat on my head so I don’t need to spend time straightening my hair or messing with it.  I stay warm AND look good with no hassle.  Imagine that.

3.)  Boots, boots, boots!!!  I’m a boot girl and I get to pull out all 10 pairs of my boots that sit in my closet and wear them all (though not at the same time….obviously).

4.)  I get to bake.  Gingerbread girls with short skirts and gingerbread men with buff arms (you think I’m lying?!).  I loooooove baking.  As a culinary chef who worked with a top notch pastry chef before my writing swept me away from it, I learned how to do everything from ganache to apricot glazes sage cookies to glass windows for ginger breads houses made out of sugar.  I love how my house smells like cinnamon and sugar cookies naturally, instead of those plug in wall thingies that would kill you if you tried to lick it…

5.)  I get to buy sweaters!  Every winter, I buy two new sweaters to snuggle into.  Call it a winter tradition, but I love nestling into a sweater when the cold rolls in.

6.)  Sledding.  Omgosh, as a girl, I loved tugging up that sled and feel the rush at the cost of nothing but my sore legs going up and down the hill.  And I still love it!!  Only now, I get to do it with my kids (and realize I’m getting old when they beat ME up the hill…)  Sadly, in Portland, Oregon snow is rare, but we have mountains we can hunt down within an hour’s time.  AND it does snow on occasion.  When it does snow, I love running out with the kids and feeling like I’m in the movie Edward Scissorhands and seeing snow for the first time.  It feels new every year I see it, especially with me now living in Portland, seeing snow is rare.

7.)  I get to make stews and soups galore and no one complains about it (because they all want comfort food right along with me!).

8.)  Winter means my favorite holiday is coming: Christmas.

9.)  I get to ice skate, ski and snowboard!  Ice skating I’ve done in downtown Chicago since I was old enough to walk, but skiing?  The first time I ever hit the slopes was when I came to Oregon and hit up Mount Hood at the age of 23.  We don’t have mountains in Chicago and they don’t let you ski off the Sears Tower (Sigh.  I know.).  My first experience was…scary as hell.  My husband (Mr. Ski pro) bought me skis and together we took the lift up the mountain (because I’m like ‘Bring it.’  Heh).  That’s right…no ski experience whatsoever and I decided to take on Mount Freakin Hood like some city girl wearing heels on ice.  And I not only took on Mount Hood but I did the BLUE run instead of the easy Green.  Because I just had to impress my husband.  It took me over an hour to get down that mountain (it took my husband 15 minutes).  Every breath I thought I was going to die or that my legs were going to snap and when I saw a guy in front of me lose control and disappear off somewhere, that’s when I took off my skis and trudged down the mountain before I ended up like him.  But guess what?  I put those skis back on and went up again…and again…and again until I no longer took off my skis but actually went down the mountain.  I’ve been hooked ever since.

10.)  Seat warmers in the car go on.  It sounds totally stupid but having the seat warmer on in the car makes this girl HAPPY.  Who knew having a warm butt could bring so much joy?

11.)  The skies at night look so much crisper and cleaner.  I don’t know why, but I get this “I’m alive feeling” when I walk around at night and it makes me SO happy.

12.)   And my favorite…I get to bundle up in bed with my hubbie. I love bundling up with him in bed. The guy is like Jacob from Twilight, he’s always unusually warm at night (high metabolism). During the summer, it sucks, and I roll away from him because I’m trying to stay cool, but during the winter? You better believe I get in extra snuggle time. He keeps me warm alllllllll winter long and that alone is why I love winter 🙂

You can find Delilah here: Website | Facebook | Twitter