Crackers

So I had some Bob's Red Mill garbanzo flour that includes a recipe for hummus on the back. Starting with finely ground garbanzo flour seems a lot easier than grinding my own chickpeas to the properly smooth texture! I was also tempted by this hummus cracker recipe so something had to happen eventually.

The first time, I scaled down the hummus recipe to make only the 1/2 cup needed for the crackers, and I left out the tahini because I didn't have (or want!) any. What I learned from this batch of hummus answers one of those little mysteries: why is some hummus so amazingly good, and why does the rest taste horrible like dirt? The answer is that cooked garbanzos are tasty, and raw garbanzos are ick ptooey. Cook the mixture again after adding the garbanzo flour, and it improves greatly!

On to the crackers, first time! I used olive oil instead of canola oil. Even adding extra flour, the crackers still were too wet to roll out, but after baking, the clumps tasted pretty good! Worth making again.

The second time I made 1/2 cup hummus from the Bob's recipe much as before, except I put all the liquids (lemon juice and texas pete) in the 1/2 cup measuring cup, and topped it off to 1/2 cup total. I also skipped the olive oil in the hummus this time around (it still tasted mostly ok, suggesting I can skip the tahini and cut back on the olive oil, and still get enjoyable lower-fat hummus), and just added the olive oil for the crackers part of the recipe. This time I had crackers that I could roll out to a uniform thinness before baking on a silicon baking sheet.

The report is still yummy crackers, and more cracker-like with the much drier hummus. I'm inspired to try this with refried beans! I had never considered making my own crackers until Cale had allergies to most commercial crackers, but it's not hard to make these crackers and they taste great! The one drawback (ahem) is that I get some remarkable gas from just two small crackers, so I probably need to cook the garbanzo beans even longer to tone down that effect. Or perhaps this is inherent in the garbanzo flour, although I suspect not since I don't remember gas from the vegan calzones made with it.

1 Tbs lemon juice 1 tsp hot sauce 1/2 cup water less 4 tsp	add lemon juice and Texas Pete to a half-cup measuring cup, then fill to 1/2-cup with water
2 shakes onion powder 2 shakes adobo seasoning 4 shakes garlic powder 1/4 tsp ground cumin	mix in a bowl, then microwave 1 minute preheat oven to 325 °F
2 1/2 Tbs garbanzo flour	stir in, then microwave 2 minutes
1/2 cup whole wheat flour 2 Tbs garbanzo flour	mix in
1 1/2 Tbs olive oil	add just enough oil to get mixture to stick together like a dry dough roll out to 1/8-inch thickness onto a silicon baking sheet (if too moist to roll, just spread thin, but without holes, with your fingers; may need to increase cooking time for extra thickness) gently cut (or dent) crackers with pizza roller place silicon baking sheet on a cookie sheet for stability bake in oven until edges look toasted, about 20-25 minutes at 325 °F when cool enough to handle, snap crackers apart cool completely, and store in an air-tight container