Cheese Cookies - A nice break from sugar. | |
Hi Amy! I think I got it figured out.
This is a piece I put on EP, and then I thought maybe I was a dunce for putting it up under quick meals. It isn't really a meal, and I would sure not blame anyone for rating lower in that category. I mulled it over all day long, and then I pulled it thinking that it was not right.
Amy emailed and was making them, but I had pulled the recipe. GOSH I FELT BAD! That's why I put stuff up . . . to hopefully help out.
I save all my stuff on Word, so I put it right back up (and so sorry if anyone had to read 2 x). Though I could make a meal of the cheese cookies and have (gosh--I'm a pig), I figure that if one person sees the recipe and uses it, then it's worth putting up.
If you can bear with a little "story," then following, you will get my favorite holiday recipe. Though I love sweats, it's nice to have something a little different too at the holidays.
The US government is big on cheese. If they have a food program, it will probably revolve around cheese. They give cheese to pregnant women, kids, and seniors. I’m not sure whether they are pushing calcium or if Ex-Lax is kicking in some funding, but I know the cheese is flowing in this country. This may account for all those soda crackers at the grocery too, since a hunk of cheese without something else is a bit . . . well . . . cheesy.
Now, I do have a sweet tooth. But woman can’t live by sugar alone. Well, she might could but she would be fatter than she is if she went that route.
If you have some extra cheese around the house, then this is a great nibble recipe. It clears the sinuses after the meal if you kick it with some cayenne pepper, or it’s good as an appetizer or for a snack.
CyndiA’s Cheese Cookies
½ pound margarine (2 sticks)
½ pound of cheddar cheese
2 cups of plain flour
1 tsp salt
cayenne pepper (1/2 tsp for mild, 2 tsp for medium, and hit it hard for hot)
Leave the margarine and cheese out all day while you are work, so it will be soft. Then mash that up. You can use a mashed potato masher or your hands. If you don’t leave these out to soften, then you will cuss the whole time you are trying to mix this up. Add the flour, salt, and cayenne pepper and mix until everything is pretty smooth and even in color.
Roll up balls of the mix sized about like the jumbo marbles that clean out the circle. Set these balls on the cookie sheet and then mash right/left and then up/down like peanut butter cookies with a kitchen fork, or just take your fingers and mash around until you have a little disk about the size of a skinny peppermint patty.
Bake these disks about 12 minutes at 350 degrees. You don’t want them to brown. You just want them to set and not be cheesy gooey.
Cool and then eat. Cookies are usually better warm, but these are kind of gamey when they are hot. If you try them hot, then you may think that you don’t like them. Give them time. Repeat. Cool and then eat.
Cheese cookies do not need to be refrigerated. Just keep them in a sealed container. They last a week or so, but I like them best the first 3 or 4 days.
If you want prettier cookies, then use a candy press or one like Tupperware has where you put frosting in and then squeeze out. Don’t make them too thick though, or they will be yucky in the middle.
These taste a little like Cheese Nips, but they are a whole lot better. Personally, I like them best with a lot of cayenne pepper (hitting the 2 tsp or better), but they are good mild too. Sometimes I make a half-and-half batch—half mild and the other half hot.
Do warn kids (and some adult people) before they nibble on these. They do look like cookies and maybe orange flavored. If someone is thinking sweet, then they will be shocked and might toss the cookies in the napkin before they figure out that they have a cheese product rather than a sugar product.  | 
My batch is just about ready to come out of the oven.
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