Рецепт Recipes | Healthy Flax Seed Crackers and Red Bell Pepper Dip – Letting Your Life Speak
‘A good life is when you assume nothing, do more and realize how blessed you are for what you have‘. Come to think of that Food could be a medium to preserve memories, reminisce with old friends and let my life speak! Well, never in my wildest of dreams I assumed that this blog Lite Bite will be a platform to store a whole stack of memories for lifetime to come.
Days pass and memories fade, but the more I cook and write for Lite Bite, the more memories I remember and cherish here.
Cooking was just another chore to me before I started this blog. But now the entire perspective has changed. Cooking now takes one step further by exploring various factors associated with that recipe such as its origin, perfect ingredients, methods, ratio, memories, inspiration and so on.
Take the example of these popular Indian tea time snacks called Shakkarpare (sweet crackers) and Namkeenpare (savory crackers). Mom used to make it quite often to pack for me during my hostel days in Delhi. These deep fried goodies have a good shelf life and I loved to snack upon it the whole day. I followed the same method for making these goodies with the usual wheat flour dough and deep frying the goodies till I started this blog.
Writing for this blog introduced me to many new ingredients and to much healthier ways of cooking. I started using Finger millet or ragi in my cakes and cookies, oats has come to the dinning table in many innovative recipes and the three culprits in white ‘sugar, salt and all purpose flour’ are now the least favored ingredients in my kitchen.
Some time back I tried adding Flax seeds to mom’s sweet version of these crackers called Shakkarpare and baked it, and now the recipe is a hit in my home. This is another savory variation I tried by adding flax seeds, spices and herbs to the normal cracker recipe and am loving the spicy twist to the goodies. These crackers are a perfect tea time snack when served with bell pepper spread or just plain.
- Flax Seeds Crackers
- Flax seed powder, herbs, spices and the dough ready for rolling…
- Ingredients;
- 1 cup Flax seed powder
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup yogurt
- 2 tbsp. Olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp chilly flakes
- 1/4 tsp dry herbs
- 1/4 tsp. baking powder
Ready for baking….
Method; Pre heat oven to 180°C and line a large flat baking tray with parchment paper.
You can use ready to use Flax seed powder or grind the seeds in a blender.
In a medium bowl add flax seed powder, whole wheat powder, salt, baking powder, herbs, chilly flakes and mix well with a fork.
Add Olive oil in the flour mix and rub lightly with fingers.
Pour yogurt in the above mix and gently fold in all the ingredients to make a dough. Wrap the dough in a cling foil and refrigerate for 10-15 minutes.
Divide the dough into two large balls and roll the dough on a flat floured surface into 1/8 inch thick circle.
To make really thin crackers, use two plastic sheets and keep the dough in between them (as shown in the picture above). Plastic sheets will not let the dough stick to the broad and will come out paper thin.
Use a sharp knife and cut squares or strips.
Place the squares on the lined parchment paper and bake for 10-15 minutes until the edges are slightly browned.
Roasted Pepper Dip
Ingredients;
2 red Bell Peppers
1 large tomato
2 tbsp. Olive oil
One garlic pearl
1/2 tsp. red chilly powder
1/2 tsp sugar
Salt as desired
Roasted bell pepper, skinned ad chopped….
Method; Roast the bell peppers on direct heat or in an oven till the skin becomes charred or burnt.
Peel the charred skin of bell peppers and chop them into small pieces.
Chop the tomato, you can use sun dried tomatoes or roasted tomatoes for this dip.
Combine the chopped bell pepper, tomatoes and rest of the ingredients and blend it into a smooth paste.
These flax seed crackers make a perfect travel, party and picnic snack.
Try to roll as thin as you can to get crispy baked crackers.
These crackers are very similar to wholewheat Graham crackers.
Store the crackers in an air tight container for better shelf life.
Notes;
These crackers could also be deep fried if you don’t have baking option.
Add sesame seeds in the recipe to get a different variation of the crackers.
Dry roast the flax seeds before powdering for extra flavors.
Garlic powder added to the cracker recipe gives a wonderful flavor and twist to the taste.
You can replace Olive oil with any other vegetable oil or melted butter.
Serve the crackers with this quick sun-dried Cherry Tomato chutney.