jodypayne Colin Culpepper shared this recipe with me. At age eleven, he made them effortlessly.
However, I’ve been known to ruin a batch or two.
What I’ve learned is: Use sweet butter, refined sugar, and new flour. The old bag you’ve had in
the refrigerator for three years doesn’t work. Handle the dough as little as possible. It gets
annoyed and fights back if you get too involved in making perfect stars.
Granny Culpepper’s Shortbread
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Cream 1 cup butter and 1/2 cup sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in 2 cups of flour. I usually cut them into Lone Stars, and bake for about 20 minutes.
Watch them carefully. Your oven needs to get the hang of not browning their edges too much.
If they do get too brown, eat them quickly, no one will ever know. What happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen.
Feta Spread
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
1 1/2 grated Parmesan, fresh, not that powdered kind
8 oz. softened cream cheese
4 oz. crumbled feta
1/4 cup softened sweet butter
3 or 4 cloves of minced garlic
3 tablespoons prepared basil pesto. In the summer, I chop up some fresh instead. It’s better.
Spray and then line a 3 cup glass bowl with plastic wrap. I use Pyrex, the kind with a blue top. Let 6 inches hang over the top. Spray the plastic wrap too.
Drain and chop the tomatoes in your food processor with a metal blade and press into bowl.
Without washing the food processor bowl, beat 1 cup of the Parmesan and next four ingredients until smooth.
Set aside one cup of this mixture, and spoon the rest over the tomatoes.
Again, without washing the food processor bowl, beat the cup of mixture you set aside with the basil pesto and rest of the Parmesan cheese.
Fold the plastic wrap over and chill up to 8 hours. Starting to understand why you want a bowl with a top? If you used the correct amount of garlic, everything in your frig. would take on a distinct taste.
Okay, now you can wash your food processor bowl. Feel better, Martha?
When you’re ready to serve, turn it over on a plate and pull the wrap off.
I have no idea how long this will keep in the frig. As far as I know, it lasts as long as the party.
