Dehydrator Flax Seed Crackers

We genuinely try, in our home, to avoid sugar. Now I know this looks hypocrital considering the post of just a few days ago showing all the sugar for the bake sales. And truthfully, we are hypocrits. We do *try* to avoid sugar. But the irony of this is that I love to bake sweets. And people seem to really like my baking. Cake and cookies and various candies seem to bless people in ways differently than flax crackers do.

Don't ask me why.

I'm not saying that we don't eat the sweets that I make on occasion. Because that would be beyond hypocritical. And a lie. But...as a general rule, I'm really blessed by a family that likes more nourishing foods as a general rule.

So even though I can dip Nutter Butters in white chocolate bark with the best of them, the flax crackers are something I make much more often. I just don't photo them as much because they're not half as cute.

**Recipe written below pictures.

This is the flax seed before it's ground. I grind it in a coffee grinder designated for stuff like this.
And this is what it looks like after about 20 seconds. I use 2 cups of whole flax seed for this recipe. My grinder is small so I have to do it 1/2 cup at a time.
I use my Blendtec blender for this recipe, but you could maybe use any quality blender if you chopped the foods a little smaller. Here I have one can of diced tomatoes and half of a medium/large onion. I then add about 1/2 cup Braggs. You could certainly substitute soy sauce I'm sure.
Here I've added about half a cup of extra virgin olive oil and a LOT of garlic. I buy it prechopped in those huge containers at Sams and I probably used 5 or so Tablespoons. I also added about a cup of water. And a whole jalapeno from the garden.
Here is 2 big handfulls of raw, organic spinach and a handful of shredded cheddar cheese. I also added about a heaping tablespoon of coarse ground pepper.
Here it is blended.
Now most of the flax cracker recipes that I've seen say to add the water to the ground flax first. I have issues with this. It "gels" and then I have a really tough time incorporating the blended vegetables. YMMV.
When you first add it to this smallish amount of ground flax, it seems awfully thin. You're gonna want to add less of the liquid vegetables. Don't. Because as you can see in the photo below...
...it thickens up. Here I'm spreading it on my Excalibur Dehydrator paraflexx sheet. One batch of flax paste makes 4 full sheets of crackers. Approximately 200 crackers.
I spread it as thin as I can get it to go which varies depending on how thick the concoction has become. The thinner pieces have a texture more like chips. The thicker pieces, more like crackers. It's a win/win. And then I score the paste to make it easier to break into bite sized pieces when it's dry.
I then barely salt and heavily pepper the paste and pop it in the dehydrator for a couple of days at 115 degrees. After several hours, asap, I remove the crackers from the paraflexx sheets to dry them evenly on both sides.

And this is what they look like when they're done. I literally cannot keep enough of these made to satisfy everyone here. I usually make a batch ever single day. They are really very, very good. And spicy.

Dehydrator Olive Oil and Black Pepper Flax Crackers

2 Cups whole flax seed, ground
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 large onion
1 whole jalapeno pepper with seeds (optional)
1/2 cup Braggs liquid aminos (could probably substitute soy sauce)
Lots of garlic, I use appr. 5 tablespoons diced (to taste)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1-2 tablespoons of coarse black pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
2 handfulls raw spinach

Grind flax seed and put in a large bowl. Set aside. Add other ingredients to a good blender (or possibly a food processor but realize that the mixture will be moderately thin and may leak) and process until it's all liquid. Pour over flax meal and mix well. Spread thinly on dehydrator sheets (I set my dehydrator at 115 degrees)and very lightly salt and pepper (to taste) and dehydrate for several hours. As soon as possible, peel the sheets off the crackers and continue to dry for 48 or so hours total.


This is a tease of my homemade protein bars. When I make them again I'll try to get some pictures and post a recipe.

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Reasonably Healthy Lunch Ideas

My middle daughter, Julia, was 13 last year. She decided that she would NOT carry a lunch box to her co-op. Now since she only went one (full) day a week, I didn't make too much of it. I'd send her some (healthy) peanut butter spread on crackers and a water bottle. Just making sure she had a big breakfast and supper on that day.

This year she is going 3 days a week. All day long. Something had to change. I talked with other mothers and we brainstormed a few things. All are more than agreeable to my middle (and now youngest as well) daughter.

First, there is no need for a lunch box. I pack a small cooler for them both together and put it in the co-op kitchen. Whenever they get hungry between classes, they can just go grab what they want from their personal "refridgerator". And they don't have to lug anything around.

And here is some of the ideas we've come up with to fill it. Bear in mind that the girls only have 15 minutes between each class, so the snacks have to be pretty small.

*Half sandwich (we call these "bendovers" cause you "bend" the bread "over")
(Preferably some type of minimally processed meat on a whole grain bread.)

*Big huge pickle (cut into spears cause the girls have braces now...I buy them in those huge glass jars that they have at Sams)

*Box of raisins

*String cheese

*Whole grain crackers (with or without non hydrogenated peanut butter)

*Fiber One Bars

*Non-sweetened applesauce cups

*Non-sweetened fruit cups

*Yogurt

*Nuts

*Organic chocolate milk

*Bottled Water

~~~When the weather turns cooler I plan to put a thermos of something warm as well. Homemade soup or chili. Or even just some hot chocolate.

They do have a use of a microwave at the co-op but there time is so limited that I don't think they'd have time to use it. Especially if there were someone ahead of them. So that's why I've not included things that need to be warmed or heated.

I'd love to hear others ideas!

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Breaking News!

FINALLY!

Today, on my sweet, precious middle daughter's 14th birthday, I finally got a second wind on my walk/jog.

And I jogged 3/4 mile.

Nonstop.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program. :)

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Running, Eating and Aging, Oh My!

I've been blogging here for a little over 2 years and I suppose over the course of time things just naturally change.

I don't feel old. Truly. But the harsh truth is...I'm not getting any younger. And I feel almost as if I'm at a crossroads in my life. It seems that people my age either start to really kick it up a notch as far as health and lifestyle are concerned, or they get old.

Yes, yes I realize that the years go by either way. But there is a difference in growing older and getting old. At least to me there is.

I want to be as healthy and active as possible for as long as possible.

So my husband and I started walking a couple of months ago. As a side note, I don't recommend STARTING a walking program in the middle of summer in the South. To say that it's hot, even late in the evening, is an understatement. To put it mildly. But we* started out strolling and pretty quickly picked it up to a fairly fast walk. An 18 minute mile is a fast walk, right? Don't laugh.

We go 1½ - 2 miles total. Now we're* up to running a third of it. Any google search turns up many "Couch to 5K in 8-9 weeks" programs online. I'm taking it a little slower. But I do plan to do it eventually. And truthfully, I'm proud of what I've accomplished.

The thing is, I ran in high school. So I FEEL like a runner. But I just not anymore. I hope to be again. But right now, no.

But we* are trying. And that's a step in the right direction. Pun intended.

We're still eating the green smoothies almost every day. I just don't think there is any argument about the nutrition in them. The other foods that we eat are pretty simple. But the goal is to try to make each bit as nutrient dense as possible. We fair at this sometimes. But it's a journey. And one that I feel blessed to be undertaking.

*Please note that when I say "we" or "we're" I'm talking about me. My husband can run circles around me. But it feels better to say "we".

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My Absence...the Mini-Series

A few weeks ago my family and I were walking into church on a Sunday morning. Everything was normal, down to the rushing to get ready and the drive to church. We got almost all the way inside (it's a pretty good walk because our church meets in an odd location at the moment) and suddenly I felt really, really weird. Like I was going to pass out, but not really. Like the world was closing in on me? I know how odd that sounds...but that's just how I felt. Odd.

I told Mike how I was feeling and asked him to stay close. I must have looked pretty bad because he got a weird look on his face. Which freaked me out a little. He sat me at the first chair we came to and got me a little cup of juice (I'd not eaten anything yet, it was an early service...so we were thinking blood sugar). My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn't hold it. We walked back outside and sat down to see if I would feel better after I drank the juice. I didn't. My heart was pounding and I was still shaking.

After 10 or so minutes we decided to leave and just head back home. I got into bed and after a (long) while slept for a couple of hours. When I got up, I felt better. But not normal. NO appetite. And just weird. My heart rate was still up (not scary up, but up) and I felt all out of whack.

So I figured I'd sleep it off and try to feel better the next day.

Well, that didn't work either. The next day I felt a bit better but still not back to normal. My heart rate was still up and I was jittery. One of Mike's friends is a doctor and he asked if my blood pressure was up. I checked and it was scary up. So the next day I called my OB. It's the only Dr. I've seen in a long while. He told me to come on in right then and I did. My heart rate was still 90-100 but my blood pressure freaked the nurse out. She basically threw me on my left side and turned out the lights in the room. (NOT comforting, if you can imagine.) I think it was 158/104? After about 10 minutes it had gone down a little (140something/98ish)so they drew gallons of blood and sent me home to lay on my left side until the results came back.

They were thinking it was probably my thyroid (overactive). And/or I was catching a really bad case of the flu?

A few days later all of the results came back totally normal. I was feeling better by this time and my bp was mostly down with occasional weird spikes for no apparent reason. But I still had NO appetite. I mean literally NONE. It was the weirdest thing ever. And no real energy. But that "out of my head" feeling was gone. And I did get a pretty bad head cold. But no flu.

And then the end of the following week, about 10 days after the Dr. visit, I had another weird thing happen. Whenever I would stand, my heart rate would go up. And it wouldn't go down until I sat down. It was like I was running, but I wasn't running. I was simply standing. So I called the Dr. back to tell him. This he didn't like at all and made me an appt with another Dr. to be checked out.

Skip forward a few days and this heart/standing/racing thing had mostly stopped. My bp was pretty normal most of the time. But the Dr. wanted to run some tests. So I go in for an EKG, Echo, and Holter Monitor (the 24 hour thing that you wear as you go about your business).

Yesterday, I find out that everything came back normal. The Holter Monitor showed that I was having some heart arrhythmia with eating, immediately after eating and when I'd not eaten for a long time (like in the morning). So it's assumed that I have reflux. Which who would have guessed that it could cause all of that? The Dr. said that it absolutely can and does cause arrhythmia. So now I have some medication that I'll be taking for a month, and then on an as needed basis.

But all of this is not really why I've not posted. At least not after the first couple of weeks (which were mainly spent supine).

The following Sunday morning after this happened the family went to church but I wasn't up to it so I was still in bed. My oldest daughter, Jessica, doesn't get to attend church much because she had to work on Sunday morning. So she was still at home getting ready for work. She didn't know that I was at home because I was still in bed. So my cell phone rings and she's hysterical and screaming something that I can't understand. She's 21, not really a child, and not prone to hysterical outbursts at all. She's telling me to come home, come home. I ran from my room with my heart pounding (of course) and she's in a fetal position on her bed sobbing.

Her best friend (a guy) was texting her late the night before, and suddenly stopped. She thought he had fallen asleep as he usually did when he was texting her at night and suddenly stopped. But it turns out that he was texting her while driving home. And 8 minutes after his last text (by police records) he went off the road, crashed his car into a culvert, the car flipped and exploded. It took them days to positively identify the body he was so burned.

He was a Christian, so we have faith that he is in a better place. But our hearts are so heavy. So, so heavy.

My daughter worked with him and has transferred because she just can't be there right now. Everyone is so sad. He was only 23.

I've thought to post a time or two, because I really need the organization of my Menu Plans and such, but it just didn't seem right. There had to be a period of morning and honoring this young man.

As I was typing this, my daughter (who is at college) was texting me. Telling me how hard all of this is and how it doesn't seem to be getting any better. She is in so much pain.

I pray for strength for her and all of the other people mourning. I pray that God speaks through me so that I might be a comfort to my daughter.

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