Sunday, April 22, 2012

Veggie Pulp Crackers

So again I was juicing today, basically to empty out the fridge of the veggies that were starting to go bad.  It was either juice or make soup.  And usually I just compost the pulp but today I was feeling the need to experiment.  Of course I didn't record my ingredient amouts... intuitive baking has it's drawbacks, but I can tell you how I created mine.  And know that anything goes here. Crackers are crunchy so you don't want to add egg, you will need oil to help bind everything and of course some type of flour, or you will pretty much end up with veggie leather! 

Here is the juice that I made: I used a cucumber, celery, spinach, apple, lemon, carrot, zucchini and a bit of ginger.

Ingredients: (again you have to be able to play around here)

  • veggie and fruit pulp left over from juicing 
  • half an avocado (because I figured the dough needed some healthy fats)
  • flax seeds (every good cracker has them right?)
  • coconut oil (melted, about 2tbsp)
  • a splash of agave
  • italian herbs
  • arrowroot flour (or any other type you want) I was going for GF
  • a tiny bit of baking soda


 Directions:

So basically I mashed the avocado into the pulp, added the flax seeds, oil and agave.  I mixed all the wet ingredients first.  Then combined the dry ones separately and then added them to the mixture. It's important to tell you here that I have no idea how much flour I actually added. I was adding it mostly till I got a dough consistency.  Which means I did have to add a bit after I had pre-mixed the original dry ingredients.  Next I flattened out the mixture on the parchment lined baking sheets. I tried to make it as thin as possible, but even so, some places were thicker than others, to deal with this, I basically cut the thin pieces out of the pan and put the thick ones back in for longer cooking time.  I had the oven at 350F and initially put them in for about 15 minutes.  This wasn't nearly long enough, so I basically stood around the oven, cutting out the crispy pieces and putting the rest back in the oven until the whole lot was nice and crunchy.  I had two cookie sheets full.

At first I tried to press the batter onto the cookie sheet with my hand but soon realized I needed to find a much better way to flatten this out.  So I added a sheet of parchment paper on top and pressed it in this way. 

Pressed and rolled with a cup (sure a rolling pin would work too)

Very flat and very thin. And Green!!!!

They baked.  And the parchment just peels right off!  easy peasy!

Cooling off on rack before putting them away. 

Pretty thin :)



Crackers topped with plain greek fat free yogourt, cucs and cherry tomato.

Crackers topped with almond butter and sliced strawberry.  Yum!

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