Cheddar Cheese Crackers

I have to say.

These turned out pretty awesome.

I've been on a mission to cook more and eliminate a lot of 'junk' in our diet.

After watching Food Inc a few months ago, I've tried to be a little more conscientious of what I'm eating and also feeding my daughter and husband. Did you know that they think that a lot of what we eat puts tremendous stress and illness on our bodies? Yuck. It's hard and I'm definitely not perfect, but I'm trying to make small changes wherever I can. Some of the most obvious changes have been changes in my meat selections. I try to buy free range chicken and/or grassfed beef when I can. I only eat wild caught seafood and I made the switch back to regular fatty milk. I'm also trying to incorporate tons of fruits and veggies into our lifestyle while trying to eliminate canned goods, GMO and processed foods and anything with high fructose corn syrup. I'm also trying to avoid anything that said diet, low fat, etc, because let's face it, a lot of that shit doesn't work. So needless to say, it's hard and can be expensive. And discouraging.

So I make the changes where I can. And one of those places has been with my snacks. Let's face it, Little Miss B can be picky. The truth hurts sometimes but it's true. And it's a pain. So I have to find easy things for her to eat all the time without continuously giving her the SAME thing over and over again. Because, let's face it, you get tired of eating the same stuff over and over.

So last night a friend posted a recipe for some easy to make crackers. It seemed easy enough and pretty yummy until I realized I didn't have all the ingredients I needed. I hate that.

So I continued searching on All Recipes and decided maybe something like Graham Crackers might be good to make. Until I found the recipe for cheddar cheese crackers. Umm, hello? I didn't have to debate it long. It was 11P and I was making them.

And here's how it went:

Cheddar Cheese Crackers

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper (I didn't have this handy, but I added substituted cayenne pepper)
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
• 3/4 cup butter, chilled
• 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (I added way more. I didn't measure but it had to be at least a cup!)
• 6 tablespoons cold water, or as needed (I ended up adding about 6.5 tbsps.)

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, salt, white pepper and mustard. Cut in butter with a fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in Cheddar cheese. Stir in water one tablespoon at a time, until the dough is able to hold together. Press the mixture into a ball, wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

 

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a rectangle that is 16x12 inches. The dough should be about 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 1x3 inch strips. Place the strips onto the prepared baking sheets spaced about 1 inch apart.

1. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden and crispy. Cool completely before storing.

My notes: I did everything as stated. BUT, when it got to rolling out my dough, I got lazy and some ended up a little thicker than 1/8 in thick. :( SO, when they cooked, some ended up being crispier (more like original cheezits) and others ended up being a little more dough-y, like biscuits.  Overall though, this was a total success. These things were like if a cheezit and a red lobster biscuit mated and had babies. NO joke. And did the pass the ultimate test of Little Miss B? Absolutely! She mowed these babies down! So simple and easy. And took less than an hour! Next time I'll be sure to make the dough thinner, but even if it's not as instructed, still...SO yummy!