Sugar Cookies w/ Royal Frosting

This is a great recipe! I tweaked it a little for the liking of my family.

Ella’s White Sugar Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/2 t. almond extract
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1 t. salt
2 ½ c. sifted flour

Directions:
Cream butter. Add powdered sugar. Blend in egg, almond extract, vanilla, salt and flour. Chill dough until firm. Roll to ¼” thickness on well-floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 375° for 8-10 min. Cookies should not brown. Frost and decorate when cool. Yields ~24 cookies. THE ORIGINAL RECIPE SAID THAT IT MADE 40 COOKIES, BUT I BARELY GOT 24 OUT OF THE BATCH. I guess it depends on the size of the cookie cutters.

Royal Icing
Ingredients:
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. meringue powder (You can buy this at Michaels)
5 tbsp. water

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the sheen has disappeared and the icing has a matte appearance (about 7-10 minutes). This will be the stiffest consistency of the icing. This is the consistency that you will use to pipe around the outside of your cookie. You may need to add water to make a little thinner, but ADD A LITTLE AT A TIME (Remember, if you are having any difficulty piping, it is still too thick. Add a little more liquid and try again.) Separate the icing into containers to tint frosting. Using a pastry bag (or in my case, a Ziploc baggy with a corner snipped to fit piping tools), pipe around the edges of each cookie. Let stand so the icing will set. Make sure to keep the leftover icing covered at all times when not in use so that it does not begin to harden.

After you have piped all of the cookies, thin out the remaining frosting by incorporating a small amount of water at a time, until the icing drips off the spoon easily when lifted and then smooths in with that still in the bowl. If you go too far and the icing is too thin, add more sifted powdered sugar to thicken it again. Once the frosting has reached the desired consistency, transfer it to a squeeze bottle (or a plastic bag with a hole in one corner), and flood the area surrounded by the piping on each cookie. If it does not completely spread to the edges, use a toothpick to help it along. Allow to set.

Use the remaining thicker icing for piping decoration as desired.

**I use gel food coloring because I think it makes brighter colors, but liquid food coloring can also be used!

Source: www.annie-eats.com

Banana Bread Recipe

This is the best banana bread recipe that I have ever made. I got it from my mom.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 bananas mashed ***
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbs. HOT water
2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and mashed bananas. Dissolve baking soda and HOT water. Add to banana mixture. Add flour salt and vanilla to banana mixture. Pour into greased and floured bread pans (I either make 2 regular size pans or 4 mini loaves). Bake 35-40 minutes. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes, remove and cool on wire rack.

- *** I usually freeze the bananas when they are going bad. They thaw out great and make a great banana bread
- I usually use a pampered chef bread pan (stoneware), so it takes the bread closer to an hour to bake.

Freezer Recipes

A couple of weeks ago I posted freezer recipes that I had hoped to make before the baby was born. Well, with all the problems I had from my previous blog, they got erased. I think that I'll try posting them again because I have had a couple of people ask for the recipes. Currently I have 9 meals frozen and about 10 cups of chicken marinated, grilled, cut up and frozen. I make all of my dishes in an 8x8 foil lined pan, so I usually get 2 8x8 pans per recipes. Then I freeze the meal. Once it is frozen I take it out of the pan and wrap plastic wrap around the meal and place in a freezer bag. This makes is very easy because everything is labeled, it doesn't take up a lot of space, and will make easy clean up when we do eat the meal.

2x chicken spaghetti

2x stuffed shells - DONE

2x chicken enchiladas - DONE

2x Brown bag burritos - DONE

2x Breakfast hot pockets

3 lbs taco meat

3 lbs hamburger meat

26 cups of chicken, cooked and cut up ( I marinated 1/3with Italian Seasoning, 1/3 with soy sauce, veg. oil, and parsley, and 1/3 with salt, pepper, lemon pepper and olive oil) - 10 CUPS DONE

lasagna (Don't really have a recipe, just throw things together) - DONE

Pumpkin bread (use recipe from can)

Banana bread (Recipe to come)

Blueberry muffins (Recipe to come)

Whole Wheat Waffles

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies

*picture taken from www.sheldonrachel.blogspot.com