Vegetable Based Crackers (LSCDL Recipes)

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VEGETABLE BASED CRACKERS

Note: you MAY be able to do these in an oven, although I have not yet

tested this. I use an Excalibur 9 tray dehydrator. (Although I confess

that, with as much as I use my dehydrator, I'm eyeing the BIG Excalibur

commercial one. If I could just figure out (a) how to afford it, and (

where I would PUT it!)

This recipe originated because I wanted a cracker with fewer calories

than the wonderful almond flour crackers, and because so many people on

the list serve found the nut flours difficult to handle the nut flours in

the first weeks or months of the diet, yet were desperate for something

with which went crunch when they bit into it. Although amounts for fresh

herbs are given here, dry or freeze-dried ones are recommended for

any vegetable-based cracker as they will help soak up some of the

remaining moisture.

I did find that reducing the parsley and increasing the chives a bit

yielded a cracker that tasted an awful lot like sour cream and chive

potato chips!

Zucchini Pulp

15 pounds zucchini (courgettes)

1 tea towel

1 colander

food processor, blender or grinder

Peel, deseed and slice the zucchini. Steam until tender in a large pot --

this is a great use for that big old pasta pot and its colander which you

no longer use. Drain well.

Purée zucchini according to your choice of method. I use the optional

fine plate on the Maverick #5 grinder. Pour the resulting green-white

slop into a colander lined with a tea towel. Do not try to use cheese

cloth - you will loose too much of the zucchini. Drain to about half the

original volume. You may have to gather up the edges of the tea towel and

squeeze the zucchini to get as much liquid as possible out of it. Reserve

the liquid for flavoring soups or gravies.

What you will have is a greenish-white pulp about the consistency of

drained yogurt. This will, needless to say, be quite a bit moister than

almond flour.

When the zucchini is drained, divide the pulp up into three cup portions

- each five pounds of zucchini will yield about 3 cups of drained pulp.

Freeze the remaining portions to cut down on preparation time for future

batches of crackers.

Herb Parmesan Crackers,

(Zucchini Base)

3 cups well-drained zucchini pulp

2 1/4 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese

(about 4 ounces weight or 110 grams)

½ cup fresh parsley, finely chopped -or- 1/4 cup dry

1/4 cup fresh chives, finely chopped -or- 2 tablespoons freeze dried

1/2 teaspoon dry oregano -or- 2 teaspoons fresh finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon dry thyme -or- 2 teaspoons fresh

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

2 extra large eggs

3 Tablespoons melted butter

3/4 cup dry curd cottage cheese

8 cloves of garlic pressed

Combine zucchini pulp, cheese, herbs and baking soda and salt in a bowl.

Blend the eggs, butter, dry curd cottage cheese (or dripped yogurt ) and

pressed garlic in a processor or blender until very, very smooth.

Add to the seasoned zucchini pulp and mix together. You will have a

moderately thick batter.

To bake zucchini-based crackers, you'll need at least 4 twelve-muffin

muffin tins. I use industrial size 24 muffin pans, and have four of them

so that I can have two in the oven and two filled and ready to go into

the oven. Mine are non-stick ones; if using regular ones, butter well.

(My niece says, " Don't bother with ordinary ones; it will drive you

crazy. I buttered mine within an inch of their lives and the stuff still

stuck. Save yourself some frustration and start with good quality

non-stick tins to begin with. " So you may take that for what it is

worth from someone who tested this recipe in standard muffin tins.) The

dough from these will be very wet, almost a batter consistency, but not

quite. Using the cookie scoop, place dollops of batter/dough in each

muffin cup. Using a moistened finger or the damp back of a spoon, spread

the batter out evenly over the bottom of each cup.

Bake in a very slow oven, 215 F for about two hours. The object is to get

the egg set up and drive out as much of the remaining zucchini water as

possible without burning the crackers.

Remove proto-crackers from muffin pans by spinning them out. Arrange

crackers on dehydrator trays, and dehydrate at 135 F until dry and

crispy. Part way through the drying, you will despair of them ever

becoming a good snack, as they will seem very oily and soggy. Give them

another 5-6 hours to dry, and they will become surprisingly

crispy.

If you do not have the muffin tins, it may be possible to make these by

placing dollops of batter on a flat cookie sheet and then spreading them

out to a consistent thinness with your finger. It will be hard to get a

consistent shape or size this way, however.

If you do not have a dehydrator, it may be possible to dry the

crackers in the oven by arranging them on flat cookie sheets, and

returning to the oven at the absolute lowest temperature yours will go,

in other words, as close to 135 F as you can get.

Variations:

I have so far made this recipe with the drained zucchini pulp, and with

properly prepared bean paste. I suspect that it could be made with any

vegetable which has been cooked soft, puréed, and drained. I will be

experimenting with a Cajun style cracker, and a Mexican cheese

crunch.

The bean paste crackers are the closest to well-done almond flour

crackers, but I think that because of the fact that legumes can be so

problematical for SCDers that I would not recomend them for anyone who is

not yet well on the way to healing.

I have also made this recipe without the DCCC or yogurt cheese and

omitting the parmesan for a dairy-free version. It comes out pretty well,

although the taste is a little flat without the parmesan. (Maybe someone

can suggest something to add?)

I can't figure out how to do it egg-free, although there's a possibility

that gelatin might do the trick.

—

Marilyn

New

Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

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