Yet Another Reason I Love This Man...

He makes homemade cheese straws, and they are really (really) good.

He’s actually been obsessed of late with recreating a "healthy" Cheese Nip… The man loves Cheese Nips. But I reminded him that he also loves those asiago cheese straws we buy at Central Market, so why doesn't he try to recreate those instead and then cut a few into little Cheese Nip shaped rectangles.

He was in, and after a little Internet research and careful reading of the back of a Cheese Nip box (scary stuff), he set to work. The result was oh so much better than a Cheese Nip, but no real surprise there…

Cheese Straws

• 1/2 stick of unsalted organic butter (softened) and cut into pieces
• 1 1/2 cups extra-sharp White Cheddar cheese (grated)
• 1 teaspoon each of shredded parmesan, Romano and asiago cheeses
• 3/4 cup organic flour
• 1/2teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes or 1/8 teaspoon cayenne (rounded)
• 1 tablespoon organic milk or half-and-half (we used half-and-half)
• You could also add about 1/2 teaspoon of chopped rosemary to these for a little twist, but we didn't this time...

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine the butter, cheeses, flour and salt and cayenne or red pepper in a food processor, and pulse until coarse. Add in milk or half and half until a smooth dough ball is formed.

Lightly flour your surface and roll the dough out until it’s about 1/8-inch thick. We don’t have a rolling pin (sad I know), so we floured an empty sparkling lemonade bottle. It works great ;-)

Cut the straws into thin strips about 1/3-inch wide using a floured pizza cutter. The dough gets sticky, so flour is your friend here.

Bake straws on a cookie sheet for about 12 minutes, remove and let cool.



We’re headed down to Bryan’s cousins’ ranch outside of Austin this weekend and thought it would be fun to bring along some homemade treats, so we're toting along the cheese straws and a big batch of the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Something tells me these won’t survive the trip down, as they’re perfect little car snacks.

Have a lovely Father’s Day weekend!