Spicy Crackers with a hint of lemon

My husband and I tried a new restaurant tonight. It is called Local Eatery and Pub. It's located at Gray Rd and 146th St in Carmel/Westfield IN. It boasts a menu of all locally bought food to serve their patrons. 

We started the meal with an appetizer of baked goat cheese. It was baked with a sprig of rosemary and roasted garlic clove and olive oil and served with a crusty warm Italian bread. That's when I wished I had my homemade grain-free crackers with me. I have not made any for a while. So, I remedied that as soon as we got home from dinner. I went to my favorite "go to" grain-free cookbook by Elana Amsterdam and flipped it open to this delicious recipe. I changed it up a little based on what I had in my pantry. 

Substitutions are always ok if you like the flavor it produces. Face it, if you don't like the flavor, texture, sweetness, familiarity (or fill in the blank) of the food you're not going to make it, much less eat it and the point of this blog is to give you grain-free recipe options that have a familiar taste to the glutenous recipes you made in the past. That way you are more likely to make it again and again.

Think about it. How many different dishes do you make every month? If you are anything like me, I eat the same dishes over and over. Here we have a simple cracker recipe that you can keep on hand and carry with you. Change out the lemon for lime and you can take these crackers to the Mexican restaurant and eat them in place of those lime infused corn chips.

Spicy Crackers

Spicy Crackers

• 3 cups Almond Flour
• 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
• 1/2 tsp Sea Salt
• 1 Tbs Smoked Paprika
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 2 Tbs lemon infused grapeseed oil (found this at TJ Maxx)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp lemon peel (from spice cabinet)

1. Preheat oven for 350 degrees.
2. Mix together all dry ingredients in medium bowl.
3. Mix together oil, eggs and lemon peel in small bowl.
4. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and mix together. It might be necessary to use your hands to incorporate all the ingredients completely.
5. Divide dough into 3 equal portions and roll each portion out between two pieces of parchment paper to about 1/16th of an inch thick, cutting into squares of other shapes with a pizza cutter. This is very thin but not thin enough to see through.
6. Leave sliced dough on the parchment pare and place it on a cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes.
8. Let cook on the cookie sheet.
9. Store in ziplock bags once completely cooled.

Keep these crackers on hand for an easy "go to" grain-free savory, crunchy snack. Use lime instead of lemon and make a cracker to scoop up that delicious homemade salsa. 

Stop reading the labels on the boxes of food in the grocery and make it from scratch. My recipes are delicious and don't take longer to prepare then it takes to eat a handful.

ENJOY!