Nuts are so expensive these days. Nearly cost you an almond a leg!

Yay, my first recipe! I started the year with something easy, a cookie. The cookie recipe I made was Tea Biscuits from The Ultimate Cookie Book. The book used to be my mom's and eventually got passed down to me. This is one of my favorite cookbooks that I use quite frequently. Although it is a 17 year old cookbook, everything I have made from it is awesome!
I made these on January 31st. I went the whole month without cooking and realized I better get on it. Now I'm a quarter of the way through February and still have some cooking to do!
Anyway, here are my Tea Biscuits (and amazing crab plate):

Tea Biscuits

2/3 c unsalted butter
2/3 c sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp choice of flavoring (vanilla, almond, etc)
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt

• Preheat oven to 350. Grease cookie sheet. (You can also use parchment paper, that's what I do. It allows you to not clean cookie sheets when you're done!)
• In a large bowl, cream butter. Mixing constantly, gradually add sugar, then egg, then flavoring.
• Sift together dry ingredients (I'm lazy and just whisk them together.) and add to first mixture to make a firm dough. 
• Roll dough out 1/2 inch thick. (I think mine ended up being a little thinner than this.) Shape biscuits with a cookie cutter and transfer to cookie sheet. Prick with a fork; sprinkle with sugar, if desired. (I wish I did do the sugar sprinkling, because it would have been pretty.) Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on wire racks.

These are super simple cookies. They ended up like a combination of shortbread and a sugar cookie. They were indeed good with tea! Steven unknowingly inspired me to use almond extract, which I really enjoyed. I love that you can use all kind of flavorings, because I have several that I don't get to use often. It will also change the cookie completely! A lemon flavoring would be really tasty with this recipe. The shape can be anything at all, large or small. With my heart cutter, I got about 15-18 cookies. You could easily use a small cutter to give you much more.
Let me know if you give them a try and how they turn out!

Tea quiero my friends! ;)