As many of you know from my enthusiastic tweets, I got a dehydrator for my birthday.  As soon as the Paraflexx sheets arrived (a week later), I began uncooking! The first things I made were Matt Amsden’s “cheese sticks” from RAWvolution and some flax seed crackers based on Karen Knowler’s recipe.  I planned on dehydrating on Tuesday and knew we were leaving town Friday so I made two items I knew would travel well with us on our road trip.  I also brought along an avocado and the little package of soy sauce and dollop of wasabi you get in your grocery store veggie sushi containers. Using those ingredients, I made a quick car friendly version of guacamole to dip our flax crackers in.  This turned out to be the perfect ‘Atlanta-traffic-is-so-bad-you’ve-been-in-the-car-for-45-minutes-and-haven’t-even-made-it-to-the-interstate-yet” snack.

“Cheese sticks” are really, really good.  They are quite salty because of the soy sauce you use in the recipe but worth it.  I found that I had about 1 1/2 cups of leftover ground up sunflower seeds after I finished.  No biggie–I put them in an air tight container and will sprinkle them on top of some salads.  Oh…I also ground up all the sunflower seeds the recipe calls for instead of what the recipe actually says (maybe that’s why I had so much extra?).

Matt Amsden’s Cheese Sticks

• 4 3/4 c raw sunflower seeds
• 1/2 c fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 c Nama Shoyu
• 4 cloves of garlic peeled

Grind 2 3/4 c sunflower seeds in the food processor.

Spread out 2 cups of the ground sunflower seeds onto a plate.

In a high speed blender (or a food processor which is what I always use), combine the rest of the sunflower seeds and the other ingredients and blend until smooth.  Transfer this mixture into a pastry bag (or a large ziplock bag cutting the corner off of one side so you can push the mixture out in the same way).  Squeeze the mixture out in 3/4 inch long sticks onto the plate of ground up sunflower seeds.  Roll the sticks around in the ground up seeds so they are coated completely.  Spread them out on your Paraflexx sheets and dehydrate for 18-24 hours at 100 degrees.  Serve with a raw marinara sauce, raw salsa or just eat them plain.  Store them in an air tight container.

I wanted to make more than enough flax crackers so I doubled parts of Karen’s recipe and added some of my own tricks.

Flax Seed Crackers

• 4 c raw flax seeds
• 1 c raw sun dried tomatoes
• the juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 c cherry tomatoes
• 1 clove of garlic (or 2 depending on the size)
• 2 T Italian seasoning
• water

In the bowl of a food processor I put all of these ingredients making the flax seeds last so everything else would have a chance to grind up.  I waited on putting water in until after everything had a chance to mix and then just poured a little, mixed, poured a little more, mixed and so forth until it was the consistency that I wanted.  You want the seeds and everything to be stuck together in almost a paste so you can spread it out over the Paraflexx sheets.  Careful not to add too much water though–keep your eye on your amounts.

When you spread the mixture out onto a Paraflexx sheet you want to make sure its evenly spread along the sheet (making sure parts aren’t too thick or too thin).  I split the mixture in half and did half on one tray and half on another. After it’s spread, score it so you can easily break your crackers apart.  If you are unsure about this process, check out Karen’s video.

Dehydrate your crackers at 115-120 degrees overnight. Flip the crackers over after about 5 hours so both sides dry. I started my crackers at 4 pm, flipped them at 9 pm and then took them out around 8 am.  Break them apart and let them cool for about 5 minutes before putting them in an air tight container.

Because I dehydrated my “cheese sticks” and crackers together, I kept the dehydrator at 115 degrees for the first 5 hours and then flipped it down to 110 degrees for the rest of the time.

**UPDATE : I have been creating new recipes for flax seed crackers these days.  The 2nd shot I had at them I used: 2 garlic cloves, juice of 2 lemons, 4 c flax seed, 1 cup sun dried tomatoes, 1 red bell pepper, a little water, 1 t Italian seasoning, 1 t onion powder, 1/8 c chopped onion. Those turned out stellar. I liked using less Italian seasoning than the first go round because I found it too overwhelming.

On my 3rd attempt at making them I used: 4 c flax seed, juice of 2 lemons, 1 cup sun dried tomatoes, 1 cup shredded carrot, 1 large garlic clove, a little water, 1 t onion powder and 1 t Italian seasoning. These are also excellent.

It’s fun being able to play around with recipes until you have them catering specifically to what you want them to be. I’m going to keep going with my flax crackers to see what other taste combinations I can come up with. These are delicious with peanut butter and jelly on, dipped in hummus and guac.