Raw Vegetable Crackers ~ Using a Dehydrator ~ Other Farmstead News

The new recipe I made, is a raw vegetable cracker.  You soak chia seeds, raisins and sun dried tomatoes, and add other blended vegetables. 

(spread out on parchment paper before drying in the dehydrator)

The interesting part, is that they are dried in the dehydrator.  Now, I imagine you can bake these in the oven, but when it's 82° out, I preferred not to.  Although yesterday it was 60°F.



The recipe(linked here) did not mention "yield" but I can tell you I spread it evenly on four dehydrator trays (on parchment paper).  When it was time to remove the parchment paper and flip it over on the trays, I noticed the edges were almost dried, and the center still soft.  So scoring them, was not too easy on the edges. 


After the second drying time, I noticed they had curled up, and did not all dry flat.  I broke them up the best I could and let them continue to dry.  Also, the recipe states to dry at 110°F, and I found that temperature not drying them in the amount of time stated.  They were still soft in the center, so after breaking them up as best I could, I put the softer pieces at the edges of the trays.


I could not find hemp seeds, so my crackers lacked those, but I did have spirulina, so it had all the other ingredients.

My crackers did not look as orange as the ones on the site where I found the recipe either.  Once I mixed the spirulina into the seed mixture, it took on a greener appearance.

The taste testers tasted these raw vegetable crackers.  The results?

We really liked these.  I made hummus to go with them.  The crackers alone are good, as the garlic flavors them pretty well.  In the end, I cranked up the temperature to the "vegetable"  setting on my dehydrator to get them dried completely.   

We are still getting asparagus, so I roasted some last night with dinner - crock pot mac n' cheese made with some of our homemade Fromage blanc goat's milk cheese.  If you did not see this tip when I posted it before, I simply put the end of the asparagus in a canning jar, with a bit of water (kept in the refrigerator).  As I pick them daily, I add them to the jars until I have enough for a meal.  This keeps them firm and crisp.

Youngest made a pitcher of infused water for us.  This one was made with one cinnamon stick, and one diced apple.  

This morning, I already have a batch of Fromage Blanc dripping in cheesecloth.  It's back to the garden again today, if my bones can handle it.  Yesterday, we got 157 plants in the ground, leaving 108 to plant today.  And that doesn't include any hot banana pepper plants, if we do find any.  I also need to get my cantaloupe planted (if I can squeeze it in somewhere out there).  Why keep count?  It's part of my pre-planning for a greenhouse and root cellar.  I'm tracking our usage in my garden journal.


I apologize to my blog world friends, I have not been reading your latest posts, but hope to catch back up soon.