Cheese Straws

This morning got off to a comically bad start.  I missed my normal alarm (and the back up one) so the first word out of my mouth was f*****ck as I leapt out of bed to frantically get ready and grab a cab to Union Station to catch the MARC to Baltimore.  It was raining, which meant 395 was backed up, so the cab took forever and was more expensive than usual.  This was made worse by the fact that the cabbie added $30 in tip rather than $3 on my credit card...thank God I checked the receipt.  He ended up paying me the difference in cash but the resulting delay meant that I had to sprint through Union like a maniac to hop on the 7:45 train, which is a full 25 minutes longer than my normal 7:20 (the joys of local vs. express). To add insult to injury, I tried to purchase my ticket home along with the one for this morning and the machine ate the second ticket and I had no time to straighten it out with Amtrak. UGH!

You are probably wondering what that has to do with cheese straws and the answer is: absolutely nothing.  I just had to get that off my chest before extolling the virtues of this wonderful party snack.  The good news is that that day can only get better from here and cheese straws certainly don't hurt.

Sorry for the lack of "after" picture - it was night time when I was baking and these went quickly the next day!

These are another homerun adapted from Deb of Smitten Kitchen and were one of my contributions to the tailgate this past Saturday. They require just 6 ingredients, most of which you probably have in your pantry and fridge, and bake up into something that tastes like a Cheezit with a kick, only 100 times better.  The only thing I tweaked was the amount of red pepper flakes (adding a little bit more) but otherwise her recipe is perfect. Definitely use good, extra sharp cheddar (there are so few ingredients that this does make a difference) and try to roll them as thin as you can because they do puff up as they bake.  Deb calls them her new favorite party trick and they are definitely one of mine.  I hope you love them too!