Making Sugar Cookies

Today the oldest daughter and I decided we wanted to make some sugar cookies. The grandson thought it was a great idea.

First we had to make the dough.

We have a favorite sugar cookie recipe that came from our next door neighbor, Kate. Every year we would go to their house and make sugar cookies at Christmas time and this was the recipe that we used.

Holiday Sugar Roll Out Dough

1 ½ cups sifted powdered sugar

1 cup margarine

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp almond flavoring

2 ½ cups flour

1 tsp soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

Cream sugar and margarine. Mix in egg and flavorings. Stir dry ingredients together; blend into sugar/margarine mixture. Refrigerate 2 – 3 hours. Heat oven to 375. Bake 7 to 8 minutes.

After the dough sits in the fridge for a couple of hours you need to put a lot of flour on the table where you are going to roll out the cookies.

This is more fun than making the dough.

A lot more fun.

Then you get to cut out the cookie shapes and put them on the pan and cook them.

You have to get really close to make sure the cookies are cool enough to frost and make sure you blow a little if they aren't.

Then you make the frosting.

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp vanilla

Water to make icing consistency.

Try to remember to not add too much water because then you have to add a lot more sugar :).

Then you get to frost your cookie. You have to concentrate really hard and make sure you do a good job.

Then you get to eat your dog bone cookie.

That is the funnest part of all!

We like making sugar cookies!

May I Borrow ...?

I came home today to find the oldest son and the fiancee preparing to make Snicker doodles. They were searching the cupboard looking for Cream of Tartar without much luck. I was 99% sure that we had some, so I dug through the cupboard too. No luck. We searched some other cupboards thinking perhaps it got misplaced. No Cream of Tartar. Luckily two doors down I have a wonderful friend and neighbor who keeps very well stocked shelves. I told the son I would call her and borrow some. When she answered the phone I asked if she had any Cream of Tartar I could borrow. There was a little giggle on her end of the phone. "Just yours that's been sitting on my counter for a week." Then I remembered where my Cream of Tartar had run off to. Apparently I'm not the only one who uses the "grocery store" two doors down.

Today I am grateful for

oranges and grapefruit from the Orange Patch.

Snicker doodles.
church basketball because it makes my sons happy and it makes me laugh.

The Curse of Party Food

I usually consider myself an OK cook. I definitely don't do fancy, but the stuff I make is usually edible, unless of course you ask my 16 year old son, then it's just disgusting because pretty much all food that doesn't come in a fast food bag is disgusting in his opinion. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I do know how to cook and am quite capable until someone asks me to cook something for a party. Then strange things begin to happen and something always seems to go wrong or the food just doesn't end up tasting as good as it usually does. I was supposed to make 2 pineapple upside down cakes for a going away party tonight for a family in our ward. Now, I don't usually make pineapple upside down cake, but I know what it is suppose to look like and I had a recipe so I wasn't too worried. The recipe called for 1 cup of brown sugar and my 1 cup measuring cup was dirty and I didn't feel like washing it so I decided to use the 1/3 cup and being the math whiz that I am I filled it up 3 times and poured it into the melted butter, just like the recipe said. It looked like there was too much butter for the amount of sugar and I double checked the recipe and the cube markings to make sure I had used the right amount and I had. It wasn't until the first cake was in the oven and I was making the second one, that I realized the cup I had used said 1/4 instead of 1/3. I should have filled it up 4 times. It was amazing what a difference that fourth fill up made with the second cake. The first cake turned out fine and you couldn't even tell that I had made a mistake, but it is just frustrating to me that stuff like that always seems to happen. It didn't really matter though because there was lots of cake and we came home with almost as much as we took. I guess we know what we are taking for Sunday dinner at the in-laws tomorrow for dessert. My sister in law called to tell us we were having enchiladas. The hubby asked what we should bring and she said "Can you bring tacos." Does that make sense to you?? I thought it was kind of humorous. Tonight I am grateful for Breakfast Burritos - Usually I am not a big breakfast burrito fan, but my hubby bought me a bacon and potato one today from my sister in law's church food sale and it was yummy. A husband - that puts gas in the car for me so I don't have to do it and have a heart attack while watching the price numbers go around and around. Peer Pressure - usually this is not something to be grateful for, but today it got 3 of my kids out of bed and at the temple doing baptisms by 6:00 AM. Thank goodness for positive peer pressure.

Not just all fun and games

Lest you all think that I'm just spending all my time this week basking in the sun I will share with you some of my less fun activities. I have appointed myself the official trash woman of the group. I carry the full bag down the stairs and to the dumpster on a pretty regular basis. I don't want you to think that I am too noble though. I have an ulterior motive. We have a big bowl full of miniature candy bars sitting on the counter. Every time I take the trash out I reward myself with a candy bar. I wish that was the only time I stuck my hand in that bowl! I also have another job that I am responsible for. Perhaps all of you middle age women can relate with me when I say that sometimes getting my bathroom needs met on a vacation is difficult. The other morning I was very grateful to finally get some much needed relief. However, when I flushed the toilet things didn't go so well. No problem, I thought, there's a plunger right here. Well,I plunged and flushed and pailed and plunged and flushed until I was sure there was a line outside the door waiting for the bathroom. Finally I had to admit defeat and share my problem. The plumbers, apparently in CA they travel in teams, arrived pretty quickly and dispatched the plug along with some unsolicited advice on what to flush and what not to. What I flushed definitely needed to be flushed. The toilet must hate me for the pain I caused it because it works fine for everyone else, but when I use it it plugs up every time! And yes, I do know how much toilet paper to use. The plunger and I are developing a very close relationship. Don't tell my hubby. Then today the whole lid just jumped off the toilet when I got close to it. I think it has it in for me.


From the picture you can see that the trash needs taken out. It's candy bar time!

At the beach a pair of us are responsible to cook and clean up one night while we are here. Tonight was our night. We decided to make Pima Tacos. The aunties would have been proud of my daughter. She did an amazing job. I was in charge of the Fruit Pizza which turned out pretty darn good as well. I love only having to cook once this whole week. What a vacation!


Perhaps we should have put an elastic in the cook's hair before she started. What do you think?