Whole-wheat crackers with Ajvar and Yogurt ‘cheese’

Having been sidelined by hurricane Ike and a fabulous trip to the Oregon wine country, I apologize for my late entry in this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge. Somehow I missed the memo about the posting date, thinking that it was always on the first of the month, so I thought I had plenty of time to write my notes when I returned home.

Fortunately, I bought all of the ingredients before Ike struck! After a week of tending to my parents, who had two of their neighbor’s tall pines favor the roof of their house during the storm, I hurriedly made my crackers and two dips and set up my tasty treats on the patio table. I took my final pictures and headed for the plane to Portland.

Here is how I made my crackers: I used whole-wheat flour and added 1-tablespoon fresh key lime juice. Having a key lime tree with limes coming out the Yazoo is a wonderful thing – I use it everywhere! I also proofed the yeast, just in case. I kneaded the dough for about 5 minutes until it became velvety and smooth. My dough required very little extra flour and it did not stick to the counter. It was very pleasing to work with.

I divided it in half, and when rolled out, each half covered two 11x17 pans. I found that it needed several breaks to rest before I rolled it out again, and most of my upper body strength. I trimmed the dough and shaped the crackers with a pizza cutter. The first batch was sprayed with a fine mist of oil (instead of water), and sprinkled with kosher salt, red pepper flakes and fresh cracked pepper. The second batch was decorated with oil, kosher salt and black and white sesame seeds. They were fully baked and crispy after 10 minutes and ready to be served when cool with my two dips.

Being Serbian-born, I was raised on a relish called Ajvar (eye-var). It was a no-brainer that it was going to be one of my dips. The main ingredient is roasted red peppers, which evokes memories of a trip I made to Serbia with my husband years ago. During the fall, the predominant sight and aroma in every town and village is that of smoke rising from the fires that char the skins of the peppers and the sweet smoky nose. It’s also a bonus that Ajvar is low in calories, high in vitamin C and goes well with grilled meats and vegetables.

My second dip is a very simple and cool Yogurt ‘Cheese’, which complements the spicy Ajvar. Here are the recipes:

Ajvar
6 red bell peppers
1 small eggplant
1 whole garlic bulb
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lime or lemon juice
½ -1 teaspoon red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Roast red peppers on high flame of bar-b-que grill until the skin is charred on all sides. Place in a bowl and cover tightly with foil so that the skin separates from the flesh. Roast eggplant and garlic bulb at the same time, on the top rack of the grill, until soft and brown.

Peel peppers while still hot. Cut them in half, but be careful not to burn your hands as you allow the steam to escape from the inside. Discard stems and seeds. Place in colander. Cut eggplant in half and scoop out the flesh, discarding the seeds, if possible. Add eggplant to peppers in colander. Slice one end of garlic crosswise and squeeze about half of the garlic cloves on the peppers and eggplant. You can use the rest to flavor your mashed potatoes! Place colander over a bowl and allow the peppers, eggplant and garlic to drain for about 3-4 hours or overnight.
Place peppers, eggplant, garlic and the rest of the ingredients in a food processor and process until blended but not smooth. It should still be a little chunky. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

Yogurt ‘Cheese’
1 32-ounce container plain yogurt (I used Dannon Lowfat Plain Yogurt)
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

Place a sieve that can hold the yogurt over a bowl. Line it with two layers of cheesecloth, having some extra hanging over the bowl. Carefully place the yogurt onto the cheesecloth and fold the extra cheesecloth over the yogurt. Place in refrigerator overnight to drain. You will have about 1½ cups of thick and creamy yogurt ‘cheese’ the next day. Unmold on a serving plate and sprinkle with red pepper flakes.

Serve crackers, Ajvar, and yoghurt ‘cheese’ and enjoy! And thank you for allowing me to share my first Daring Bakers Challenge experience!

- Dragana

A Photo Essay of Lavash Crackers.. to start! :)

Forgive me all.. Kelly sent these in a couple days ago and it took me a lil bit to finally get them posted.. I'm missing the first part of her email, so when she resends, I'll update her post. :)

Seasoned and ready to go!

Into the oven...

Fresh out of the oven!

All cracked up.. haha!

- Kelly

Lavash Crackers and Vegan/Gluten-Free Dips/Spreads

September marked my inaugural entry in the Daring Baker's Challenge, and what fun! I was expecting primarily sweet-related recipes for the challenges so I was pleasantly surprised to see Lavash Crackers and Vegan/Gluten-Free Dips and Spreads as the chosen recipe. I rarely, if ever, bake non-sweet treats, and as a meat- and dairy-loving girl, I don't usually think twice about whether or not I'm using any animal products in my creations. So it was nice to step outside my comfort zone and really think about exactly what to make within the guidelines (I almost wrote "restrictions" but that makes it sound like I had to give up something good to fulfill the challenge, but the finished result was nothing short of decadent!)

While my crackers didn't roll out quite as thinly as I'd have like, they nonetheless came out crispy with just the hint of a chewy center. I divided the dough in half and sprinkled sea salt and sesame seeds to one half, and sea salt and poppy seeds to the other. Looking back I wish I would have gotten more creative with the herbs, but I will definitely get more adventurous when making them again. I rolled the dough out then cut strips with my trusty pizza cutter (which is a tool I use so often, yet rarely for pizza!). I liked how the uneven edges gave it a rustic look.

For my dips/spreads, I decided to make one savory and one (sort of) sweet.
First I made pineapple salsa. The combination of juicy roma tomatoes, fresh cilantro, and pineapple chunks made a really pretty presentation. I will admit I am a pepper/chile wuss, so my salsa was a little mild. The only "kick" came from the chopped red onion and minced garlic. But it was still super tasty, with a tangy tartness from the addition of balsamic vinegar that went well with the crispier pieces of the crackers.

My savory dip was olive hummus. I love love love black olives so I knew for this challenge I wanted to incorporate them somehow. The distinctive olive flavor meshed well with the hummus. A dash of cumin powder at the end gave it just the right amount of pep.

The day I made the crackers and dips I was heading to the Hollywood Bowl for the Beck/Spoon concert (woohoo!), so I decided to pack it all up and bring it for my friends. Now, perhaps it wasn't the easiest thing to attempt to eat in that situation (we did not have box seats with a table, just regular seating), but my friends were sure happy that I brought it all. Both dips and the crackers were very well received, thankfully.

Over all I was pleased with the end result. I will definitely do some things differently next time, and that's the beauty of the cracker/dip theme ­ the flavors and combinations are endless!

- Angie

Lavash Crackers and Topping

I looked so forward to this challenge, because I just so do love crackers. But I had never heard of Lavash Crackers before.


First I was unsure about the unbleached bread flour, but then I decided to make two batches of dough with type 1050 flour.
(For German flour type numbers see here.

Following this recipe was pretty easy. I made sweet ones with cinnamon,sugar and almonds and salty ones with salt, dried garlic and dried italian herbs, salty and ones with salt and ones only with salt.

They all came out O.K. I was the only one who liked the sweet ones so I decided not to make any topping for them.

For the salty ones I made a tomato topping and an avocado topping and as special request of my boyfriend some shepherds topping which doesn't belong to this challenge because it isn't vegan.

The tomato topping was to everybody's liking and eaten before I could take a photo. So there is only one photo of Lavash Crackers with avocado topping (and shepherds topping).

As for the crackers, my family was very unison in deciding that the crackers can really go without topping, too. I will make those crackers from time to time in the future.

-bana

I Swear I'm Vegan...

…in my other life. By other life I mean the one that I live when my husband and son aren’t around. After all, one can’t make 2 separate meals all the time and stay sane. I grew up in a home that was almost vegetarian and I didn’t know that’s what we were. On a very rare occasion we had ground beef…..never straight though…it was always mixed with some ground seitan.

Ah….the memories…..anyway I made the Lavash crackers and they were perfect. I don’t think one could really mess that up. They have to be the best cracker I’ve ever made, so many different ways to make it shine. I used three different topping for the crackers. Cracked pepper, sesame seeds and poppy seeds. I admit I was out of control for this challenge and it took everything I had to reign in my visions of vegan deliciousness. This was my most favorite challenge so far and the bonus was that I got to use my favorite cookbook. I have come across many opinions about Mark Bittman and his books. Most people are neutral…don’t love him, don’t hate him. I on the other hand….LOVE him. His books are simplistic, yet tasty and so I totally have to give him a plug. I used his book “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” for my dips. I wanted to make everything in there, but I narrowed it down to three.

The first is a pineapple chutney. I’ve never had chutney and thought this would be a great one to try. It was fantastic. Next time I will add a little less red hot pepper flakes.

I then made a spinach artichoke dip. While it’s not your typical dip, it had some great flavor.

10 oz. of creamed spinach
1 jar of marinated artichokes
Smidge of minced garlic
¼ c of vegannaise
Salt to taste

Combine all ingredients, put in dish and bake for 20 minutes till bubbly.

I made the creamed spinach myself using almond milk and a roux of oil and flour. I think the almond milk added flavor that brought out the spinach. I had planned on using a dash of Worcestershire to add a sharpness that the parmesan adds in a traditional recipe, but I found I didn’t even need it.

My last spread was a mushroom pate. I love mushrooms and this was a great combo of button and dried porcinis. I did choose to not totally macerate the pate….I like a little chewy with the cracker. Unfortunately I didn’t alter two of the recipes I used so I can’t post them, but I totally recommend Mark’s book.

Thanks Natalie and Shel for a great challenge. I love living in my vegan world!

- Amber

I just Dare to be a Baker. For the first time.

Vegan? Gluten free? Never tried those before, so why not. First attempt was both successful and…not as the Lavash was ate before I even started with the dip. It’s such a great snack just as it is!! But than I got my little Help-er.

And we made it again. It was topped with nigella on one half and cumin seeds on the other (we got two sheets out of the recipe)

At the begining I was thinking of dozens of dips I could make for Lavash. Humus. Black olives Tapenade. Hot & Spicy salsa. Guacamole. Hot apple chutney. Sweet apple/cinnamon sauce. Even poppyseed dessert. But I could only make them after visiting store. And I was running out of time, as the Lavash was already on the table. So I made an eggplant/tomato/red pepper/onion/chili/olive kind of dip (i just used vegetables available-meaning: in my fridge). It was almost too late. But I managed to take a photo. One.

Definitely I’ll make it again. I just stopped believing in dips. Thanks Shel and Natalie for hosting. I look forward to October.

- Borgia

My first lavash experience

I need to start with a brief discussion of Belgian flour. I hope no-one takes offence, flour here is pretty bad. There are only a few types of flour available in supermarkets and normal food stores, and only some of them actually serve their stated purpose. Bread flour here (white bread flour) has hardly any gluten content at all (9% protein, can you believe it?), and comes ready-mixed with “bean flour”!!!! Perfectly useless for making edible bread (or anything else that is edible for that matter). Pastry flour is good for pastry and cakes, but again, not for bread. Real bread flour can be obtained at specialist stores (e.g. as a British import), but the nearest outlet is quite far from my house. That left me with only one option: I had to mix plain pastry flour with some Italian “hard wheat” (durum wheat/semolina) flour in order to increase the gluten content. I replaced about 25% of the flour with this. I do this when I make Italian ravioli dough, and for puff pastry as well, whenever I need the gluten.

After that, everything went more or less smoothly; I followed the recipe to the letter (except I used sugar instead of honey). I needed the full amount of water. I believe the dough could have used a bit more rising time (and/or more yeast, and/or warmer water), as it was only beginning to rise after 90 minutes. I’m also convinced that the proportion of olive oil should be at least tripled.

I used my beloved Silpat mat for rolling, cutting (very carefully with my ravioli wheel) and baking.

My baking time was about 25 minutes. I tasted one for scientific purposes, the other ones had to wait for the dips to be ready. They are crusty, and rather good!

Let me mention that next time I intend to use half the dough to make “tortas de aceite”, a delicious addictive Spanish sweet cracker, following the recipe given by Susan at the Wild Yeast blog which looks very authentic to me.

Now for the dips.

Firstly, I made salmorejo, an Andalusian classic. Salmorejo is said to be “the mother of gazpacho”, and it is typical of Córdoba in Spain. I learned to make it from my ex-sister-in-law, but she always made it without measuring anything. I therefore used a recipe, which came from this site.

Don’t even attempt to make salmorejo if your tomatoes aren’t really tasty, red and ripe. I used 4 lovely tomatoes which were exactly 500 g (a little over 1 lb.), and about 2 oz. of bread (crust removed). I pressed the garlic before it went into the food processor. I also did peel tomatoes and remove crust from bread. Since it had to be vegan, I used neither eggs nor ham for decoration, just black olives.

And the last dip is entirely my creation, a tweaked eggplant pesto trapanese recipe borrowing elements from pesto trapanese (see here) and from eggplant pesto (see here, which is in Italian).

I used:
2 eggplants/aubergines (about 500 g total weight)
2 Tbsp roasted pine-nuts
2 Tbsp roasted almonds
1 Tbsp pumpkin seeds
2 walnut halves
a small bunch of basil
one clove garlic (pressed through garlic press)
5 cherry tomatoes
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
4 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
salt (slightly over ½ tsp.)

My first step was roasting the eggplants directly over the gas flame until soft and all skin was charred. You have to be real careful when turning them, you grab them by the stalk and take care not to get burned. Then you peel off all charred eggplant skin, rinse them and press them between your hands to remove as much moisture as possible. The rest is easy, you just put everything into your faithful food processor and pulse. You don’t need to get it too smooth.

Well, this was my first challenge. I never thought I’d be able to do it on time, considering I was rehearsing for a theatre piece (it went great BTW). I feel sooo proud. The crackers are nice, the dips are good too. Can’t wait to see all the other posts!

- Adriana

Party Princess – September 2008

I’ll admit that I was disappointed that my very first challenge as a Daring Baker was not a sweet treat, but trying new things is part of the fun of joining. A gardening friend has been sharing her bounty of eggplant with me, so I knew that I’d make ratatouille to serve with the crackers.

I had to ask the stock boy where to find the yeast, not a good omen, but I had no trouble making the dough. I’ve had such good success rolling piecrust in a plastic zippered gizmo, that I decided to try rolling the cracker dough in it as well. I divided the dough in half and rolled two circles, sprinkled them with salt, basil and sesame seeds and cut them in wedges with a pizza cutter. I substituted non-stick foil for the parchment and baked them for about 15 minutes.

The final results weren’t as evenly browned as I would’ve liked; I guess the dough was not an even thickness. They tasted okay, especially topped with the ratatouille, but I don’t think I’ll make them again. They were a lot of bother for mediocre results. I’m looking forward to next month’s challenge!

Ratatouille (E. Casey Lunny)

1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large eggplant, diced
1 can stewed tomatoes
2 medium zucchini, diced in large chunks
herbs to taste
olive oil to sauté onion/garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
• Saute the onion and garlic until tender
• Add eggplant and tomatoes, bring to simmer
• Simmer, covered, for 15 minutes
• Add zucchini
• Simmer for 10-15 more minutes, until vegetables are suitably soft
• Remove from heat
• Stir in herbs, season to taste

- Lynn

September Gluten-free Vegan Cracker Challenge!!

Hi all, bethanykae here with a funny story for you about my first challenge!

I have to say I was less than thrilled to get these crackers as my first challenge. In the past, my experience with gluten free anything has been less than delicious. After finally finding the right flour, I made them, took some pictures, but hadn’t made a dip yet. I am a baker and don’t ever make dips; it’s not my thing. I didn’t know what to make, so I put it off.

So, I had these crackers and didn’t even want to try them because I thought they’d be gross. I had some with poppy seeds, some with garlic, and some with cinnamon sugar. I left them out and told my mom to try them all. She reports they are good, “they are better than Wheat Thins”! I am shocked but not sold, so I reluctantly tried them for myself. Ha! Who knew? They were delicious! My mom and I ate them all before I ever even made any dip to go with them!

So I finally found a humus recipe to make with my less than cooperative blender and am remaking my crackers as I type (the night before they are due)!

Here are the final results! Yum! Thanks and apologies to Natalie from Gluten A Go Go, and co-host Shel, of Musings From the Fishbowl! I stand corrected. Gluten-free vegan crackers can be awesome!

Until next month!

- bethanykae