Week of Love

Valentine's Day kicks off a "week of love" in our household.  


Tess's birthday is in three days, on the 17th, and then Chris's and my wedding anniversary is two days after that, on the 19th. February is a big month for us. It is a time of gratitude for the love in our lives and the fruit that this love has produced. It is a time of celebration and reflection.


Tonight I spontaneously decided to bake some shortbread hearts. I've been thinking about making them for about a week now, and at 5:30pm, in the middle of dinner and bedtime routines, I decided to up the evening chaos and just do it. My kitchen counter is still covered in flour and the kitchen's now a disaster, but it was well worth it. It's safe to say that these salty, buttery cookies have become a family tradition at this time of year. I started making them a couple years ago, thanks to my friend Mia, and now our "week of love" just wouldn't feel right without them.  

This recipe is from my Silver Palate cookbook, which is stained and bent and crinkled from years of use. On the page of the shortbread heart recipe there's a quote. It makes me smile every time I read it, and it seemed appropriate given the places my own heart has traveled over the last few weeks:

Cooking is like love--

it should be entered into 

with abandon 

or not at all.

--Kitchen graffiti

REAL love is about abandon, surrender, giving, and sacrificing. It is not reserved. It is relentless. It breaks rules. It changes lives. It changes the world. It is changing me.

"We know what REAL love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters." --1 John 3:16

Happy Valentine's Day to you all. Thank you, dear friends, for loving me. Thank you for your supportive comments, emails, text messages, and phone calls. Thanks for walking this road of life with Chris and I. I hope your day has been lovely.  

Here's the recipe, if any of you would like to make it a tradition in your household:

Shortbread Hearts

3 sticks (3/4 pound) sweet butter, softened

1 cup confectioner's sugar

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 granulated sugar (or sprinkles!)

1. Cream butter and confectioner's sugar together until light.

2. Sift flour and salt together and add to creamed mixture.  Add vanilla and blend thoroughly.

3. Gather dough into a ball, wrap in wax paper, and chill 4-6 hours (I only chill mine for about 10 minutes because I'm impatient).

4. Roll out chilled dough to about 1/2 inch thickness. Cut out cookies with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. Sprinkle with sugar or sprinkles. Place cut out cookies on ungreased cookie sheet and refrigerate for 45 minutes--or you can just put them straight into the oven like I do.

5. Preheat oven to 325 F.

6. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until just starting to color lightly; cookies should not brown at all. Cool on rack.

Yield: 20 cookies.