Snack @ 226 - Grain Free Crackers

Life without a good camera is leaving me totally uninspired.  I look at the pictures on my phone and know the food that I made had all the qualities of a bloggable meal, but with the weird shadows and the awful reflections on my iPhone, I don't like what I see.  So, it makes me hesitant to blog about it.

Luckily, I am friends with some pretty inspiring people (thanks, Kimber).  So, I can't sad-sack for too long.  One of them posted pictures of a few homemade snacks she had made and I promptly requested the recipes.   She promptly inboxed me (thanks again, Kimber).

None of us are wheat free or suffer from wheat allergies of any kind.  Actually, none of us have any allergies at all.  We're freaking lucky in that regard.  But, I just feel like (unless it's in treat form like coconut cake or whoopie pies) flour is an empty ingredient.  (If you're interested in knowing more, this is a great read about the developments in the wheat industry in the last 60 years and the rise of Celiacs and gluten sensitivities.) And, if I can replace it with something more substantial and still end up with tasty results, I'm so in.

We tried to roll out the scraps and use a cookie cutter with decent results.

Well, that happened with these crackers.  They're fairly mind-blowing.  I made them with the babes after school and they were out of the oven by 4:00 p.m.  That means it took us a total of 30 minutes to make 60 crackers.  I can't wait to try them with hummus but they'd also be good with a slice of cheddar.  We ate nearly half the bag plain so we didn't get to, ahem, experiment much.  So much for being uninspired.  As for the photos, they still are.  Please accept my apology.






































Awesome Grain Free Crackers - adapted from this recipe

1 1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seed or pepitas or some mixture thereof (I used half and half)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon salt free seasoning mix (I used Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute)
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup sesame seeds
about 1/4 cup water

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Whiz the sunflower seeds (and/or pepitas, if you're using), sea salt, seasoning, and garlic in the food processor until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal.  Add the sesame seeds and pulse a few times to mix.  Now, lightly drizzle in the water while the machine is running until a dough ball forms.  I used exactly 1/4 cup.

Roll the dough out between two sheets of parchment paper, until the crackers are 1/8 of an inch thick.  You can always opt for a thicker cracker and leave them at 1/4 inch, but I really liked mine crispy.  Once they're rolled out, remove the top sheet of parchment and slide them onto a cookie sheet.  Take a sharp knife and slice the crackers into the size of Wheat Thins, approximately.  You can leave the misshapen edges and have some irregular crackers or you can remove the scraps and roll them out and repeat the process again.

Poke each cracker twice with a fork and then bake them for 12-15 minutes.  Keep an eye on them because the time will depend on how thin you rolled them out.  Remove from the oven and let them cool in the pan.  Break apart the crackers along the scored lines and munch away.