Baking and Grieving

As many of you may know from my previous posts, Cleaning and Baking are two of my biggest stress relievers. There is something about both of them that allows me to escape for the moment and not focus on current stressors. This morning after dropping Hubs off at the Airport I found out from my mother that a dear family friend had passed away early this morning. Not being good at dealing with grief, I barreled through my front door, only to realize everything (including the bath tub) was sparkling clean. I grabbed an apron, preheated the oven and just let my hands take over. Baking can be very therapeutic, and it forces you to concentrate on the task at hand. There is something very relaxing about rolling out dough, cutting out cookies and especially piping out frosting (sometimes I skip the whole cupcake and just frost on wax paper for the same relaxation effect). I zoned out for two hours and found this ...

Apparently for the past two hours I had been doing this...

And this... (And I took pictures of it! I never take pictures, but for some reason I did today!-Bizarre how my body took over)

Needless to say, I am going to freeze these cookies and hopefully ship them out with some pink frosting for Valentines Day. And even though the situation is not happy, I did find the silver lining. This cookie recipe is amazing (and if you knew our family friend who passed on, He would absolutely love that I am thinking of him while baking and love the fact even more that I am sharing this cookie recipe with you). So here it is (I am not sure where it came from-I'm sorry)

Uncle Jims Hearts

-7 Cups All Purpose Flour

-2 Cups White Sugar

-2 teaspoons of Salt

-2 teaspoons baking powder

-1 1/2-2 cups of Shortening

-3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

-1 Cup Whole Milk

-3 Eggs

Combine dry ingredients, add shortening to dry ingredients in 3 parts mixing well in between, add in Vanilla, Milk & Eggs and mix well until ball is formed. Roll out on floured surface with floured rolling pin. Cut the cookies thick. Bake in a preheated oven for 8-10 minutes (the edges and bottom barely turn brown) at 375degrees F. Frost with your favorite icing and decorate with sprinkles or colored sugars.

Give them to someone you love:)