That’s a fancy-schmancy way of saying “Cheese Straws”. I’ve been hearing about cheese straws since back when Hilda Rumpole raved about those little cheesy things Dodo Mackintosh makes. Every recipe for them I found talked about how easy and quick they are to make. Right up my alley, yes?
But they appear to be a party food, which means that all the recipes made eleventy-gazillion servings. I was like, “NnnnnnnnnnnI don’t think so.”
Then (happy ending!) the wonders of the Internet happened! The clouds of cute kitty pictures parted and I found a recipe for cheese straws on Allrecipes.com, a brilliant site that lets you adjust the number of servings you want.
I adjusted to two.
Cheese Straws For Two
- 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (or any cheese you like)
- 1-1/2 teaspoons margarine
- 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (not just no, but HELL no)
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon water
Mix everything but the water until well blended. Add water a little at a time to form a stiff dough. Roll out and cut. Allrecipes says “roll out slightly thicker than pencil-shaped sticks”, but I found that singularly uninformative. I rolled mine out slightly thicker than Popsicle sticks. Make ’em as thick as you want ’em. Just remember, the thicker they are, the longer they’ll take to cook through and the more likely they are to scorch on the outside.
Allrecipes also says to grease the baking pan, but I must have blinked because I didn’t read that part and didn’t do it. After they cooled slightly, they popped off just fine.
Bake at 400F for 5 or more minutes. They should have puffed up a little and be golden. Mine took about 10 minutes.
And good? YES, they were good! Even Charlie remarked on it, and he’s the man who told one of our kids who was complaining about dinner, “Everything doesn’t have to taste good to eat it.”
The other stuff in the picture is Jasmine rice, corn, lima beans, and pesto. It was very good, too.
WRITING PROMPT: A character is spurred to do something by a casual remark in a book.
MA
