sugar cookies

i may have already told you, but when my grandma was still living, she made all of us grandkids valentine cookies. lots of valentine cookies. you also may or may not know that she wrote me a cookbook when i was first married. in that cookbook she wrote her recipe for sugar cookies - one of the many flavors of valentine cookies that showed up at my house year after year.
i used that recipe today, and i thought you might want to use it sometime soon, too.

1 C shortening
1 C sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
2 eggs
4 Tsp milk
4 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder

in a large bowl, cream together sugar, shortening, salt and lemon zest.
add eggs and milk, set aside.
in a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder.
gradually mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients (if you dont have a mixer, this will be your workout for the day)

pre-heat the oven to 350

on a clean, flat surface, roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick. i used a 2 inch round cookie cutter to cut out cookies and ended up with about 3 dozen cookies. use whatever cookie cutter you like, but it could change the final cookie count (same thing happens if you tend to consume cookie dough instead of rolling it out again)

cook these for about 15-18 minutes - take them out when they start to look just the slightest bit brown.
cool on a rack before frosting.
grandma always used strawberry cake frosting (which is absolutely delightful) if you use cake frosting, let the cookies sit out until the frosting is a little bit hard. you can also make royal icing (also delightful) if you're going to really get fancy when you decorate. these cookies make me happy.