...with coffee cup in hand: Valentine's Day Cookies

Happy (soon to be) Valentine's Day! If you are at all like us, this holiday gets greatly looked over. If it weren't for the kids schools reminding us with crafts, hearts, party invites and class lists for Valentine's cards we'd probably forget. With 3 young kids and a "lovey dovey" holiday in the middle of the week, on a school night, the hubs and I don't exactly get to go out. For us, we usually stay in and I try to make a nice "adult" dinner (that we'll eat after the kids have eaten something else and are watching a movie) in which we will do our best to have a good conversation with little interruptions. I might even light a candle on the table. How about that for romantic! I could lie and say, "We don't need a holiday to make us romantic because we do that all the time." But we don't. We try our best like anyone else. Some months we get 4 dates out and others we don't get any. Over the years we've gotten pretty creative at dates at home though.
One thing I do try to do every year is make cut-out heart cookies for Valentine's day. I always feel like by now we're ready for them again since Christmas and it's always fun to use different cookie cutters, sprinkles and new colors of icing. I love to watch Food Network on t.v. and one of my favorites is the Pioneer Woman. I was watching her over the weekend and she was doing chocolate cookies and thought it'd be fun to try. Then I looked and her recipe was very similar to my recipe for my Grandma's butter cut-out cookies. So why not make both! I made one batch of regular ones and adapted the recipe to make chocolate ones too. They turned out really good! Grandma's recipe is what I've used for years at Christmas and any other holiday to make cut-outs. They are a butter cookie so they aren't as sweet as some sugar cookie recipes. I think that's why I like it so much. After you pile on the icing and sprinkles and whatever else, it's nice to have your cookie not soaked in sugar too. The chocolate ones have a richer taste and I dipped them in melted white almond bark and still used sprinkles and they were so adorable!

So cute!

Grandma's Butter Cut-Out Cookies
1. Cream together:
    1 cup butter, softened
    1/2 cup sugar
2. Add:
    1 egg
    1/2 tsp vanilla
    1/2 tsp baking powder
    1/8 tsp salt
    3 cups of flour (To make chocolate ones use 2 1/2 cups flour and 1/2 cup cocoa)
3. Beat dough until combined, dough will be stiff.

This is how your dough should look

4. Roll out 1/2 the dough on a lightly floured (or cocoa-ed) surface. I roll mine to 1/8-1/4" thick.

I get flour everywhere!

There's the cocoa... Even messier!

5. Use your cutters and transfer to cookie sheet.
6. Use remaining dough and scraps to roll out again until you have used all the dough.

Using my cute cutters

7. Bake at 375 for 8-12 minutes, or until set and edges are just beginning to turn golden.
8. Let cool completely and ice and decorate as you'd like

They are delicious even like this!

Icing
1. Whisk together until smooth:
    2-3 cups powdered sugar
    2-3 T milk or water
    1-2 tsp light corn syrup
**Add more powdered sugar if it's too runny or more liquid if it's too thick
2. Separate into smaller bowls and color with food coloring
3. Using a spoon or knife spread desired amount onto cookies and decorate with sprinkles or toppings.
4. Let set about 30-45 minutes to harden.