Cheese Stars

This recipe is from the cooking with kids section of one of my favorite cookbooks--Nigella Lawson's "How To Eat." I love this cookbook, and highly recommend it. I don't usually share recipes from my cookbooks too often, because after all, people make money selling the cookbooks. However, I decided to share this one for a few reasons:

1- Because I really love this cookbook, and have spent far too much time reading it, and not nearly enough time cooking out of it. So it's more like a review, really. :-) I love how it's not just a book of recipes, but her food philosophy, how she assembles meals, what she keeps in her pantry, stories about dishes, where she got them... every time I read it I feel like I sat down in her kitchen with her for a chat and I LOVE that about this cookbook.

2-Everything I ever have cooked out of it has been FABULOUS. I do not lie when I say her Hazelnut Cake changed. my. life. Also the pea risotto.

3- Because I am not allowed to cook or bake without my kids... they MUST always be in the kitchen when I am baking especially. Before Thanksgiving I made the mistake of mixing together dinner rolls without letting Debris know. I am not to be forgiven for that oversight--it was mentioned with great bitterness just yesterday. Anyway, this recipe is so easy it's a really great one for kids, which is wonderful.

4-Because a lot of her simple throw together meals are the same as my simple throw together meals, that I had made my own before I ever knew she existed. Warning: If I should ever be speaking with you, and we discover that we share "throw-together comfort food" meals, I will automatically feel a deep and abiding bond with you. But not in a creepy way, I promise. I just really love food.

5-Because I share a homemade stock making obsession with her--if there's something I can make homemade stock out of, I surely will. Reading this cookbook helped me to not only lose the feeling of weirdness that I had over my multiple frozen bags of chicken, beef, ham and otherwise whatnot stock haunting my freezer, but realize it was a really good thing, and I could use it to my advantage.

This recipe was one I re-happened upon in my perusal of the cookbook one lazy Saturday, and felt compelled to make with the kids immediately. Kiki and Debris laboriously read the recipe (yay!) and fought over who got to do what, as children should, and mixed it up by themselves, and took turns rolling out and pressing the stars. They were VERY dubious. VERY dubious... after all, a cookie with cheese in it could not possibly be good. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that THE ENTIRE BATCH was GONE in less than a half an hour after being made. They are indeed that good.

*Cheese Stars*

1/2 cup AP flour

2 Tablespoons (1/4 Stick) Butter, very softened (she calls for unsalted--I can't be bothered to buy two types, so I just use salted, and use a small pinch of salt instead of my usual large pinch)

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

Pinch Salt

Pinch Cayenne

2/3 cup finely grated Orange Cheddar

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. We scrubbed up the girls hands and they worked on mixing it together with their hands--I think that's probably the easiest way. If you wanted a food processor would work well--it'll be crumbly at first, and then come together smoothly the more you work it. Roll the dough out to about 3/8 inch thick or so on a surface that has been lightly dusted with flour, and then bake for just about 10 minutes. I put the oven light on my stove and watched them to get the timing right. You want them just the tiniest bit tan--not brown at all.

They would be mighty good with apples... we've never made them last long enough to cut apples up though. The cookbook says you should get about twenty-eight 1.5 inch stars--that is exactly what I got, and every one was joyously enjoyed in a ridiculously short amount of time. The best way I can think to describe them is with a taste similar to cheese crackers, but with the texture of a pastry.

I'm seriously considering doing these as my Christmas cookie gift this year just for something a little different... they would be a wonderful break from the overwhelming barrage of sweetness this time of year.