last month my mom and i ended up on nephew and niece duty for a football saturday. mom planned to make a big ‘ole pot of chili and suggested cheese straws might be the perfect snack to accompany a piping hot bowl for dinner. say no more! instead of just picking some up at the nearby grocery store, i got to googling and stumbled upon this cheese straws recipe featured in food & wine magazine. i’m finding they are a reputable source, which shouldn’t be surprising but is comforting.

i don’t know that i have ever eaten a cheese straw, much less made one. so i was sure to read the recipe through several times before i got to mixin’. the minimal ingredient list gave me a short pause, but sometimes less is more. what i ended up finding as i prepared, rolled, and cut this dough is that these cheese straws were quite easy to bring together. many of the components are staples that were already handy in the pantry, and i’ll tell you now that the house smelled heavenly as these sweet little things baked up in the oven.

i decided to use a fancy fluted cutter my dad got me ages ago (8 years ago to be exact) and definitely wiggled each straw as suggested in the instructions to create an appealingly curvy shape. just make you smile, don’t they?

and then you know what made me chuckle? how these cheese straws looked so much like crinkle fries once done. much amusement. so they were good looking, but were they good tasting? i’m happy to report they were. if you make these, don’t you dare omit the cayenne pepper. it’s extremely necessary to keep the straws from tasting bland, and if i’m being honest, i think (somehow) the straws tasted better the next day. cheesy? zippy? easy to eat? you can bet this recipe is going in the binder.

oh, and this month i have a bonus for you all! i was suddenly inspired to try my hand at a roll cake. yes, i’ve made cake. yes, i’ve made whipped cream. but have i ever rolled a cake? no. this recipe from john with preppy kitchen will be a keeper. i think my only flub is that the cake was overbaked by maybe just a minute or two. i say so because when i unrolled the cake, filled it with the cream, and rerolled it, some cracks started to appear. the good news is that you drown it in chocolate ganache, which covered up all my mistakes! i am not embarrassed at all to say that i did share a slice with phillip but then managed to eat the whole rest of the cake all by my lonesome. at least i paced myself throughout the week. 🙂