Good afternoon!!!  Well, it's the day before Valentine's Day, and I am sure many kitchens were busy with the wonderful smells of Valentine's!!!  My baking starting at 8:30 this morning, and my kitchen got finished clean up at 3:30 this afternoon.  Well, we had to take time for lunch with my sister-in-law and nephew.  I made up a meat sauce last night and threw it in the slow cooker so I could just heat that up while the cookies were baking this morning, and then I just cooked up some penne and we had shredded mozza cheese for on top!!!  They enjoyed it - I used country sausage and ground beef in my meat sauce - love using some sausage for some kick!!!

Today, I baked a batch of the Grandma's Best Sugar Cookies like the other day, except I only have 1/2 butter and 1/2 margarine.  Hubby did not like them as well, and so I know now that butter is better for these cookies just as they had said.  Also, both times I have left out the baking soda!!!! and yet they raised just fine because of the cream of tartar I guess!! LOL!! 

My sister-in-law brought over some butter so I could make some real buttercream icing.  Sorry I forgot to take a picture of it, but I will share my recipe, and a picture of the cookies all decorated - no cheating with pre-made icing this time!!!

Easy Buttercream Icing

1/2 cup butter, softened (wasn't totally softened, so used the pinterest tip of grating it. IT WORKS!!)
4 and 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla (I only used 1 tsp)
5 Tbsp. milk (I only needed 4)

Cream butter till light and fluffy.  Beat in vanilla, and then I put in icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time, and then 1 Tbsp. of milk, until I had the desired consistency.  (Some days I use the 5 Tbsp. of milk, so I do not know if the weather has anything to do with it or the temp in the house.)

Yield : About 3 cups of icing - Will frost 24 cupcakes.

I also made a very easy and wonderful cookie that I found from the website
http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/01/23/strawberry-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Of course, I had to put my own little twist on it for Valentine's, so here it is:

Strawberry Your Choice Chips Cookies

1 box (18.25 oz) strawberry cake mix (I used Duncan Hines mix)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 cup white chocolate chips and Valentine M&M's (mixed to make the right amount)

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix and baking powder.

In smaller bowl, whisk together eggs, canola oil, and vanilla extract.

Add liquid to the dry ingrdients, and mix well with wooden spoon until all the dry mix has been incorporated.

Add in choice of chips and mix together.

Using a cookie scoop, place cookies on cookie sheet.  Note: they do expand!!

Bake for 10 minutes - do not let the cookies get brown (ssshhhh - a couple of mine did).  Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on cookie sheets for 3 minutes.

After the 3 minutes, remove from cookie sheet to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling.

Yield : 2 and 1/2 dozen with using the cookie scoop.

These cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week....if they last that long.  Oh my, the possibilities one has now for cookies - all the different cake mixes and chips and all!!! 

Thank you for joining me today, and Happy Valentine's Day to you all tomorrow!!!