Grandma Porter's Sugar Cookies

Every Thanksgiving, as we started the long drive home from Arizona, my Grandma Zina Porter would give us a BIG tin (much bigger than the one pictured) filled with her wonderful iced sugar cookies to sustain us on the trip. I don't think there were ever any left by the time we got to Texas. It doesn't feel like Christmas to me until I've had some of these cookies each year.

5 cups flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 cup butter/butter flavored Crisco
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup rich milk (almost)

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Blend in shortening (like pie crust). [I'm not real deft with a pastry cutter, so I mix it in with my hand until it's cornmeal consistency.ep] Put beaten eggs in a one-cup measuring cup, add vanilla, fill remainder of cup with rich milk. Add to the dry ingredients and stir. [It's not a real wet dough, almost more of a pie crust consistency. Don't worry, it will come together when you roll it out.ep]

Working with 1/3 of the dough at a time, roll onto floured surface until no more than 1/4" thick. Dough puffs during cooking. Cut out desired shapes and transfer to cookie sheet.

Bake at 350'F until golden (approx 8-11 min).

For an easy icing once the cookies are cool, mix a few teaspoons of milk into a cup of powdered sugar. Add food coloring as desired. You can ice with a knife. Or, for a faster method, drop the cookies-top side down-into the icing. Lift and let the excess drip off. Let sit for a while for icing to harden a little. Pack with wax paper between the layers.