Almond Sugar Cookies

Christopher and I have been watching a lot of food shows lately. 

"Good Eats," "Cut Throat Kitchen" and "Chef's Table" to name a few. 

Yes. We are way too involved with Netflix. Let's just move on.

Sometimes after we finish watching something particularly inspiring (usually a documentary). Christopher and I talk about possibilities for ourselves. How could we do something so grand with our lives? What if we snubbed the idea that we have to be good at everything we touch, and instead focus all of our energy into being good at one, just one, thing.

For Christopher, it always comes back to coffee.

"What if I had a coffee shop, 

and we only served one kind of pastry--your almond cookies, a day old." 

Christopher is always dreaming, always thinking of future possibilities, and always planning. I will come home from work and open the computer to find tabs and tabs of research he has done on cities he wants to live in someday. He has done research on Boulder, Seattle, and every city along the ocean in Southern California. He has a mind that is made up to go somewhere beautiful. 

He is my dreamer. 

My favorite kind of adventure is one that includes coffee and pastries. 

One that includes Christopher and Danielle. So when he mentioned a coffee shop that sold something I bake---I immediately joined in on the imagining.

This is the lesson I've learned: My husband is always, always going to be a dreamer. He is always going to be thinking of more adventure, ways to have more effect on the world around him. I can either be annoyed that his focus is somewhere other than our small world in Lawrence, Kansas...or I can join him in the dreaming and be part of it.

I have to remember that I'm always his first consideration in every future he sees.

Here's my recipe for my Almond Sugar Cookies.
These are the cookies I baked when Christopher left town to participate in his Barista Competition for Starbucks. These are the cookies I bake when Christopher and I are spending a Sunday watching food shows and snuggling our pup.

These are the cookies that say, "I missed you," "I love you," and "I'm so darn proud to be yours."

Almond Sugar Cookies:

Cookies: 2 cups all purpose flour; 1 tsp baking powder; 1/4 tsp salt; 1/2 cup unsalted butter; 1 cup sugar; 1 tsp almond extract
Sift flour, baking powder,  and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter & sugar in your stand mixer until smooth. Mix in egg and almond.
Slowly (slowly!) add in dry ingredients, mixing on low as you go.

Refrigerate at least 1 hour (up to 12).

(I like to just stick my entire mixing bowl, covered, in the fridge).
Pull out of the fridge and give it another good mix with your stand mixer.
This will help get it back into a nice little dough ball.
Roll out the dough (1/4") and cut into whatever cookie shapes your heart desires.
Bake 8-10 minutes.

Icing: 1 1/4 cup confectioners sugar; 2 tbs milk; 1 tsp almond extract;food coloring if you wish.Mix together and spread over cooled cookies.(If you like a thinner, more old fashioned icing only use 1/4 c. of the confectioners sugar).