"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)

Savoury Rugelach

Traditional rugelach, which I have blogged about before, are Jewish cookies made of a cream cheese pastry topped with a sweet filling of jam, nuts, chocolate, or cinnamon sugar and rolled into distinctive croissant like shapes. This recipe is an innovative variation on that popular and delicious cookie. Instead of a sweet dough and filling, the cream cheese dough is made with herbs, and is rolled up with toasted pine nuts and black olive tapenade. The finished cookies can be eaten warm or room temperature as very addicting appetizers at a cocktail or dinner party. They can be made ahead and frozen. I love the idea of making savoury versions of traditionally sweet foods, and could see all kinds of flavour combinations in place of the tapenade, pine nut and herb combination used here....ie dill and smoked salmon rugelach,fig and goat cheese rugelach....the possibilities are endless!
This recipe uses 1/2 a block of cream cheese and makes about 16 rugelach...for a big party the recipe is easy to double.

Savoury Rugelach with Pine Nuts and Tapenade

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon dried thyme
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• ½ cup butter, softened
• ½ cup cream cheese, softened
• About 1/2 cup olive tapenade
• About 1/ cup pine nuts

1. Whisk together flour, thyme, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

2. Beat together butter and cream cheese in a large bowl with an electric mixer until well combined. Add the flour mixture and mix at a low speed until a soft dough forms. Gather dough into a ball, then halve dough, and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Flatten each half, in plastic wrap, forming a 4-inch disk. Refrigerate for six hours to allow gluten in dough to relax (I left it for only 2 hours dough was fine).

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

4. Starting with one disk of dough, roll dough on a floured board into a 9’ round. Spread tapenade evenly over dough (spread thinly it doesn’t need a lot.). Sprinkle with pine nuts. Cut the round of dough into 16 wedges.

5. Beginning at base of wedge, roll up dough as tightly as possible toward point and transfer point side down to an unlined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough and tapenade, arranging wedges f dough 1-1/2 inches apart. Bake until golden brown, 20-25 minutes. Cool on baking sheet on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Notes:

Dough can be made one day ahead.

Can be served either warm or cold, reheat if desired at 325 for 10-12 min.

Adapted From: “Gourmet Today” ed. Ruth Reichl