Dessert girl here. We missed Brandi this week but still had a good showing for steak and bean buritto night. Since the writer of the family was absent I will attempt to step in. But for everyone's sake I will keep it short and sweet. Suprise guest of the week was neighbor Scott, who just returned from climing Mt. Kilomanjaro, which apparently "isn't very challenging." Somehow I doubt it...
Once again, to make sure Grandpa keeps letting me come every week, I made the dessert. Since there is no family dinner next week, I decided we would honor valentine's day a little early!

Jimmy's pink cookies from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life

Ingredients for the cookies:
3 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
Beat the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add the flour and salt and beat until the flour is just absorbed. Add the vanilla and beat well to incorporate. Gather the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour.
Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Roll out the dough to 3/8 inch thick and cut into hearts. Bake for 16 minutes (if your hearts are large like mine were). Cool on the pan.
Ingredients for the frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
6 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar
1 cap full of cherry extract
Red food coloring
Beat all ingredients together. Add just enough red food coloring to make a pale pink. spread generously onto completely cooled cookies.