Crankiness, Edmund Gwenn and Cheese Wafers
Just to balance things out with the wonderful weekend---we had a relatively crappy evening last night. Ernie picked me up from work, we…uh….got off on the wrong foot shall we say, and the evening kind of went down from there. I attempted to cook dinner and burned the hell out of my finger on steam when I checked my rice. Owen broke something dear to him and was devastated. Leo just kept minecrafting but attempted to appear interested in family life when appropriate---I’ll give him credit for that. It was just one of those evenings.
Tonight we are resolved to have a MUCH better evening. Owen and I need to go out for present shopping when I get home from work and later I’m thinking perhaps pizza or Chinese for dinner along with a viewing of The Christmas Story. We watched Miracle on 34th Street the other night. In fact, last night Owen was laying in bed next to me. I was attempting to read a particularly good Regency romance on my kindle and listen to Kevin Welch. Owen was attempting to calm down which substantially lowered the odds on me accomplishing what I was trying to do. Finally he quieted a bit however and then out of the blue came, “I’m just thinking about Miracle on 34th Street.” I raised my eyebrows at him and he went on, “I just keep thinking that my mom thinks the Santa Claus in that movie is beautiful. Huh.” I told him that I did indeed think Edmund Gwenn was beautiful and he nodded and drifted off to sleep to Kevin’s singing.
I love that boy.
I think it was Val that asked for my recipe for cheese wafers. It's a basic recipe---I got it from the Chicago Tribune about a million years ago when we lived there. I love these things. Sometimes I use different cheeses (a mix of white cheddar and parmesan is nice), sometimes I add fennel seeds or cumin seeds for some crunch, once in a GREAT while I roll them in poppy seeds or sesame seeds before I slice them...but no matter how I make them they're good. Sometimes I slice them thin and bake them a few minutes longer, sometimes I slice them thick and bake them just til they're shortbready. It's so simple that it's foolproof. I always think they're better if you let them sit in the refrigerator overnight at least....and sometimes we up the cayenne a bit too....
Cayenne Cheese Wafers
2 cups grated cheese (I just use a big chunk---sometimes it's more than this but I like the texture best when they're very cheesy)
1 cup butter (doesn't need to be unsalted for these---salted is fine)
1 teaspoon each cayenne and salt
2 1/2 cups flour
The easiest thing is to shred the cheese in the food processor. Then you can just pull out that blade and put in the regular one. Cream the cheese and butter until they are COMPLETELY incorporated (I must say the food processor is better for this than a mixer---it's good either way but I like them best done in a food processor). Add dry ingredients and mix well. Shape into 2 or 3 logs, wrap in foil and refrigerate. Slice and bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees.