Favorite Valentine's Baked Good

I love all baked goods. I mean I LOVE them ALL. So it's hard to just pick one. However the first thing that came to mind were sugar cookies. They are so simple. And the beauty is that you can cut them out as hearts and decorate them with messages for that special someone in your life. Or in my case those special someones.

Here is a basic sugar cookie recipe:

For the cookies:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter until soft and creamy. Slowly add powdered sugar and beat until well combined. Add in egg, almond extract, vanilla, salt and flour and continue to mix until smooth. Chill dough until firm, at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Roll out dough on a well floured surface until it is 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies with floured cookie cutters and carefully transfer them to the prepared cookie sheets. Bake cookies for 7-9 minutes. Cookies should NOT brown. Let cool completely before frosting.

I got this recipe from Cake and Allie. She has a lovely picture of her cookies with royal icing. They are lovely! I just wish I had the patience to decorate that intricately.

So tell me, what is your favorite Valentine's Day baked good?

2014 Goals

So this month I am going to try to do the writing prompts provided by the SITSA's. There is a prompt a day for the month of February. Maybe this will get me back in the swing of things.

My goals for 2014 is to learn more about clean eating and implement it. With doing that I intend to find and post some recipes that I enjoy. This will be a process so it may be a while before I post a recipe I find worth sharing. My biggest problem is meal planning and preparation. I can wrap my head around it, but I feel like I am being told what to eat, how to eat it, and when. Sounds crazy right? Especially since I am the one making the meal plan. I think part of it is that I need to do a few days at a time rather than an entire week. One. Whole. Week. Of meal planning seems daunting and I run out of ideas. 

My trick, so far, is to screen shot other people's meal plans. I am doing this through some groups I have joined, all full of people who are on a similar journey. We check in daily to report what we did for exercise and how we would rate our food choices for the day. The coaches/leaders provide a lot of information, recipes, and we can all support each other and post what we had problems with and how we can tweak our nutrition so that we are successful.

Here's to clean eating! Wish me luck......