Withdrawal syndrome

Living without an oven just isn't for me. After two weeks, I KNOW. And so does my husband (trust me on this ;o)). I pleaded with the repair guy. And pleaded and pleaded, and there was nothing he could do he said. His changing story about different parts didn't sound very plausible to me, but he has the power and I still don't have an oven. So I pleaded with my mom. And my sister. With a lot more succes I must say ;o). So I ended up with 4 batches of cookie after all (yay!!). First I prepared a double batch of sugar cookie dough, to make cut-outs for my nephew's upcoming birthday. After testing at least a dozen different recipes, I'm sticking to my tried and true that contains a hefty dose of cream cheese. It might be a little harder to work with, because it's kind of sticky, but the taste makes up for it. I sprinkled the leftover dough with cinnamon sugar, pearl sugar and almonds and cut out stars, trees and wreaths and voila, instant Christmas gratification :o). I will use them as teacher gifts this upcoming Friday.
Then today I made one of my all time favorites: Rose Levy Beranbaums linzer jam-filled thumbprints. I filled them with homemade blackberry jam. And because chocolate is always appreciated, I made another batch of Fine Cooking's chocolate crackle cookies. All cookies are securely tucked away into the freezer for the holidays, and will be used for gift-giving as well. Happy Holidays to all of you, and here's to a sweet New Year!! Please send some good vibes our way on the house, because the day after tomorrow we will FINALLY know if we're packing up this week or not...