Rosemary Seed Crackers

After a fun and relaxing holiday I am buckling down to finish the last semester of my Master’s degree in psychotherapy. Just like last semester I am trying to ensure that I am eating well during these busy weeks. It is so tempting to buy food at the cafeteria, but it is important to me to make my own healthy snacks at home and bring them to school. My favourite snacks include trail mixes with nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, raisins, dried cranberries, figs, dates, popcorn, and occasionally chocolate chips are my go-tos), fruit, home-made granola bars, home-made cookies (such as blackbean or hemp-seed based cookies), home-made muffins, feaux peanut butter with banana or apple (I love adding cinnamon), hummus with veggies or crackers, and avocado and nutritional yeast on crackers. My ultimate favourite add-ons to any savoury snack or salad is veggie pâté and home-grown sprouts.

A lot of these snacks are pretty simple, and I’m sure a lot of them are not new to any of you, but my goal in listing my favourite snacks is to inspire some new creativity among anyone who reads this. If you have any other vegan go-tos, let me know!! I’m always looking to be inspired with food.

Moving along to the recipe at hand.

Crackers are a tricky food because many of the store-bought ones contain many unpronounceable ingredients. Not only that, but a lot of crackers have a great deal of sodium in them. I’m not saying I never eat things with excess salt or that have been processed, but I try to keep these foods to a minimum. And, that is why one of my new years resolutions is to make my own crackers. Here is a recipe I tried last weekend. It is good with hummus, veggie pâté, or just on its own. It has protein and veggies in it, which is what I look for in snacks. This recipe was inspired by “The Complete Book of Raw Food 2nd edition” edited by Julie Rodwell.

Ingredients
1 cup flaxmeal (the recipe calls for flaxseed, but I did no have it)
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 large carrot, finely chopped
1/4 cup leek, finely chopped
1/4 cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/8 cup fresh rosemary
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
pinch cayenne
1/4 tsp salt
Pepper to taste

I soaked the flaxmeal and sunflower seeds in three cups of water for 6 hours. I then blended everything in a food processor until smooth. The batter was spread about 1/4 inch thick onto three dehydrator trays that I lined with parchment paper. The crackers were dehydrated for 16 hours at 110*F. About six hours in I scored the trays to define how big the crackers were going to be.

The crackers turned out really well, and I am looking forward to experimenting with different kinds of raw crackers. I made some a couple years ago, so go here to check out the beginning of my dehydrating adventure

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

This is probably the longest I have gone without posting a recipe on my blog, and now that various school projects and assignments are out of the way, I can finally post my oatmeal raisin cookie recipe: one of many recipes that have been backlogged since I last posted.

Not everybody likes raisins, but I certainly do. For 100g of raisins, you get 10% of your daily recommended value of iron, 3g of protein, and 4g of fibre. Despite the fact that they do have quite a bit of sugar in them (59g for 100g of raisins), at least it’s natural sugar.

Honestly, I got this recipe off the Robinhood flour website. I adapted the recipe to be vegan and have less sugar.

Ingredients
1/2 cup vegan margarine or softened coconut oil
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp ground flaxseed
3 tbsp water
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda
3 cups oats
1 1/2 cups raisins

I began by mixing the ground flaxseed, vanilla, and water together and let them sit for 5 minutes. In a large bowl I used a wooden spoon to mixed the margarine, apple sauce, and brown sugar until combined. I added the ground flaxseed mixture. In a medium bowl I combined the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and oats until just combined. Then, I added the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients little by little, stirring until combined, making sure to scrape the bottom and get all the ingredients mixed together. The raisins were mixed in last.

I dropped the cookies by the tablespoonful onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. If you don’t have parchment paper, be sure to grease the cookie sheet. The cookies baked for 13-14 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.