What to do with all that leftover cheese?

Make your own crackers!

Hola my friends, 

I am not sure if you had a chance to listen to my podcast yesterday with Tamar Adler? We talked about her new cookbook, The Everlasting Meal Cookbook. It’s full of recipes that give new life to leftovers. It’s a great way to reduce food waste (and also your grocery bill!)

One of the recipes that caught my attention was a trick for what to do with leftover bits of cheese. If you know me, you know I love cheese. I use it in so many of my recipes: padrón peppers stuffed with tetilla cheese, bikini de jamón y trufa, even microwave cacio e pepe.

Often, though, I have just a little piece left. Not enough for a recipe, or even for a snack. Tamar has a solution for this dilemma. Save all those cheese ends and make homemade Cheez-Its!

The recipe is pretty simple…you just combine the leftover cheese with some flour, cornstarch, butter, ice water, and salt and bake for 15-20 minutes. For this recipe I am sharing with you below, I had leftover Manchego, of course, and a few ends from a piece of of Massimo Magaya de Sidra from Rey Silo, one of my favorite Spanish creameries from my home region of Asturias (Tamar suggests using hard cheeses). And of course I added extra pimentón to give them that special orange Cheez-It glow!

And you know what? They really do taste like Cheez-its. The perfect snack with a glass of cava.

Homemade Cheez-Its