Raw chia and linseed crackers

Last week we became the proud owners of a dehydrator (thank you, dear husband!) and after an initial –and yummy- experiment with apple rings I got down to some serious “cooking” with it. I used a recipe from the book that came with the dehydrator as  the basis for these, to get textures and dehydrating times right until I get the feel of it myself, but I have changed many of the ingredients, so I guess this counts as my own recipe now!

½ cup ground chia seeds

½ cup ground linseeds (flax)

¼ cup rice bran oil

1 cup finely-chopped carrots*/ parsnip/ sweet potato

1 cup water

1 tsp hing

1 tsp chilli powder

seasalt, black pepper and soy/tamari/ Liquid Aminos to taste

(You could also use herbs in these, but I didn’t this time as it’s the first month of Caturmasya.)

·         Blend everything together to a paste, adding more water gradually if needed

·         Spread evenly over a paraflex sheet on a dehydrating tray using damp fingers and a spatula about 6mm thick. Carefully score 20 crackers.

·         Dehydrate for 1 hour at 140F, than flip the sheet onto another tray, separate the crackers and continue to dehydrate at 105F for 6-10 hours, or more.

*Strictly speaking, Gaudiya Vaisnavas -and Vaisnavis- do not eat carrots (use my search engine to find out why).

I found that they needed a little more salt, but compensated for this by spreading yeast extract on them. Only the thinnest ones turned out crispy, but the softer ones were pleasantly "bread-y". If I wanted to make them all totally crispy, then I would make them thinner. I would have included a pic of how I topped them with tahini and courgette (zucchini) ribbons marinated in lemon juice, extra-virgin olive oil and black pepper, but I ate them before I thought of getting my camera out...