"Green Label" Cheese Straws

This recipe is from a vintage recipe booklet from a company called "Green Label," which I gleaned used to make some form of margarine or butter substitute. I liked the book because the recipes seemed reasonable by today's standards and because of this recipe for cheddar straws.
I also was intrigued because many of the recipes in the book have no butter or eggs and could be easily adapted for people with dietary restrictions. That being said this recipe is not one of those. It's main ingredient is cheese.
I substituted butter for the Green Label because I am not entirely sure just what Green Label is and because I like butter. Mmm butter.
The recipe is a basic pie pastry type preparation but with "nippy" cheese added to it to make things interesting. Mmm..."Nippy."
The only tricky part about this recipe is cutting the dough into thin strips and then transferring the strips to the baking sheet and once they were baked, transferring them to a rack to cool. Much breakage occurred. I ate the rejects.
Another tricky thing is that in vintage recipe fashion, the Green Label book was typically vague about the exact baking time of these straws. They are quite thin and bake at a high temperature so I settled on about 10 minutes when the straws began to brown at the edges. That being said depending on the size of your straws and your oven temperature, this is a recipe you have to watch.
You can't really go wrong inviting cheesy pastry to your cocktail party so I highly recommend trying these if only for nostalgia's sake.


Cheese Straws

makes: approximately 1 dozen straws

• 1 cup sifted flour
• 1 cup grated "nippy" cheese, i took this to mean cheddar
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• pinch of cayenne
• 6 tablespoons Green Label, I assumed Green Label was some kind of margarine. I used Butter
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• cold water

1. Blend flour, cheese, mustard, and cayenne. Cut in butter.
2. Mix Worcestershire sauce with 2 tablespoons cold water and work into Green Label mixture.
3. Work in just enough water to make a pastry.
4. Roll out to 1/4 -inch thick and cut into strips, approximately 5-inches long and 1/4 -inch wide.
5. Bake in 400 degree f oven until golden brown. This took me about 10 minutes. Leave the straws to firm up on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool as they will be less likely to crack that way.

Adapted From: Green Label Cookbook (date of publishing, unknown)