breakfast+snacks / recipes / side dishes+dressings / glutenfree / vegan
There is nothing like getting a book you have been waiting for a while, and realizing that the person you admire has written down an introduction you totally identify yourself with. Like what she says about the need to cook at home with genuine ingredients or the need for a higher proportion of vegetables in our dishes, or for example her statement about the value of the food as something that gives us nourishment in different levels and that doesn´t have to be complicated, even if we are too busy in our lives. There is not any dogmatic or extremist vision, but a real call for attention to recover the love and passion for the products our earth produces, not only because we take pleasure in their taste but because they take care of our physical health. There is nothing about labels, or weird or fancy products but instead a lot of flexibility.
Anna Jones, which also wrote another highly recommended previous book, worked in several restaurants and collaborated with Jaime Oliver as stylist and food writer, something that is clearly felt throughout the book.
One of the first recipes I made was her crackers, which she herself defines as really amazing. I wanted to check it out by myself, as I am also a passionate lover of the crunchy stuff. What I like most about them is not only their taste, but the fact that are made basically of seeds, oat flakes and water. That is, besides being good and simple, you will be giving your loved ones something super-nutritious and super-easy to make. The best thing is that they stay crisp for a long time (something really good if you live in area with a lot of humidity). They are perfect to be carried around, to the beach, the countryside or to take them to work as a side dish for your lunch. It is a perfect way to substitute the omnipresent bread (especially if it is of a bad quality), breadsticks or rice cakes (also too much ubiquitous in my opinion). And the best of all is that you can customize them to your liking, choosing the seeds you want to use or the spices you prefer.
The only thing that doesn´t convince me completely is that she recommends to stretch the dough at 1/2 cm, but it looks too thick to me and I prefer to stretch it as 0.3 or even 0.2. In that way, you will get a lighter crunch and also more quantity…
You can choose to make only half of the recipe at the beginning to see if it works for you.
Hope you like them as much as I do.
Ingredients
100 grams of sunflower seeds
100 grams of pumpkin seeds
100 grams of sesame (I use it black and white)
50 grams of poppy seeds
50 grams of chia seeds
200 grams of glutenfree oat flakes
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tablespoon of maple syrup or honey
3 tablespoons of melted coconut oil (or olive oil)
350 ml water
optional:
1 tablespoon of fennel seeds
I have experimented with:
1 tablespoon of curry
or
2 tablespoons of Provence herbs or fresh rosemary
instructions
- Heat the oven to 175°.
- Mix in a big bowl all the dry ingredients, blending them well with the hands.
- Mix the water with the oil and the syrup. Add it to the dry ingredients and mix with the hands. I would advise you to let it stand for 5 minutes, and knead it a bit (around 3/5 minutes) inside the bowl afterwards until you see that it is thickening and that you could make a ball out of it. It is a very sticky dough.
- Stretch it in between two sheets of parchment paper. In my case, this amount is more than enough for two different trays in the oven. Remove the paper from above and cut it with a wet pizza cutter giving whatever shape you prefer.
- Bake for 20 minutes, take them out, turn over the sheet of parchment paper and remove it so the crackers can get also baked in the bottom. Now you can separate them a little bit being careful not to burn yourself.
- Place them inside the oven again for around 15/20 minutes or until you see that they are getting a golden color.
- Let them cool down and keep them in an air-tight glass pot.
- Enjoy!