Sunday, December 18, 2005

Faux Fir, Pain Update, and a Cookie Recipe

I'm in the process of putting up our new, mother-demanded/mother-approved faux Christmas tree...just taking a break in between the branch-fluffing, a task that's taken the better part of an hour, and that has left little red welts all over my hands, just like handling a real Christmas tree. I also notice that the fake needles shed too, albeit not like a real tree. All in all, people, I'm not seein' a real advantage here, other than a relatively easier time sticking the fake trunk into its stand. But I am trying to maintain a Positive Attitude despite all this, helped considerably by listening to Bach on the Beeb all afternoon, taking occasional deep sniffs of my real Christmas wreaths, and sneaking Christmas cookies. My mother, of course, is just delighted with our, um, Manchurian spruce: "It's so much less trouble!" Bite tongue, LutheranChik! Christian charity! It's your mom! Keep humming "Wachtet auf"!

Which reminds me: Thanks, all of you, for your kind words, thoughts and prayers. My wonky jaw has improved somewhat; yesterday I had only a bit of an ache, as if someone had punched me a few days earlier, and I felt chipper enough to bake cookies. This morning when I awoke the pain had all localized to my molar, but only when I applied pressure to that side of my mouth...in church today, when I went up for Communion, the taking-and-eating was enough to bring the pain all back; I think the chalice bearer, down the line, thought I was having a profound religious experience as I grasped for the cup, when I was actually thinking, "Ow...ow...ow...OW!" Oh, well...one day at a time. With any luck I'll get a pre-Christmas doctor's appointment so we can at least start to figure out what's going on in there.

Anyhow...back to the tree...I'll have to post a virtual tree tour when it's all decorated. Until then...off to fluff some more.

Oh...but here's a cookie recipe I found while recipe-mining the Internet. It's delicious and decadent and makes lots. If you are fasting for Advent, this is your cue to avert your eyes.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cookies

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese (lower-calorie works fine)
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 large egg
1-1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 (12 ounce) package semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)


Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Beat cream cheese with butter, egg and sugar until light and fluffy. In the top of a double boiler over hot (not boiling) water, melt 1 cup of the chocolate chips. Stir into batter. Stir in flour, baking soda and nuts, if desired, along with remaining chocolate chips. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until firm around the edges. Allow to cool one minute on baking sheets then remove to wire racks to cool completely. Makes 4 dozen cookies.

8 comments:

Rachel Nguyen said...

They sound DELICIOUS! I am going to try them this week.

Oh, and thanks for the frank review of the artificial tree. I have been leaning toward one for a year or so now and I am glad to get the naked truth. I'd rather deal with needles than fluffing fake limbs, I think. (Sounds almost naughty!)

Emily said...

We had to have an artifical tree in our last home (apartment rules--and, frankly, I could barely get groceries into our 12th floor apartment, let alone a tree, but I digress). The instructions to 'fluff' the branches just killed us, and have become part of our holiday tradition.

Glad you're feeling better

Rachel Nguyen said...

Update:

Made the cookies last night. Wow. They are wonderful! I cheated a little and added some extra chocolate chips since I had another bag on hand. I was excited because the dough is soft enough that my vintage Hamilton Beach Model K mixer could easily handle it.

I HIGHLY reccomend this recipe! Thanks, LutheranChik!

LutheranChik said...

Rachel: I'm a pretty vanilla individual anyway, but unless someone has a kinky masochistic thing going on about Christmas-tree-needle stigmata on one's hands, there is nothing remotely sexy about fluffing a tree.;-)

The cookies, on the other hand...they are pretty good, no? I also think they'd be good with bittersweet chocolate.

bls said...

How is your jaw, LC? Did you get a Doc appt.?

LutheranChik said...

Alas, no appointment before Christmas. The good news is that the stabbing, send-ya-to-the-ceiling pain is gone; the bad news is that there's still this sort of mumps-y residual feeling around there. (And I was informed by one of my colleagues yesterday that I looked "absolutely terrible." Why, thank you...thank you for sharing.) Interestingly, one of my coworkers had also been complaining of a toothache...when she came to work yesterday one side of her face was literally doubled in size -- she looked like a sad chipmunk. She's convinced it's an abcess, and was going to see her dentist yesterday afternoon...hope that went well.

Anonymous said...

I made some.
Oh.
My.
Goodgollymissmolly!
These are amaaaaaaaaaazing!
Yummmmmmmmmm!

LutheranChik said...

They really are.;-)

But I found that they really need to stay in the refrigerator or they dry out.